No One Left Behind
by Syroc
Summary: An spinoff-story from In Flight by Gabriel Blessing based off of a simple question: what if Rin and Saber hadn't stayed behind? Warning: departs from both Sekirei and In Flight.
1. Foreword

**Foreword (THIS IS A HANDY THING TO READ! YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO THAT!)**

Some people have pointed out that this story has reached a point where it can stand on its own two feet. They might be right. Because of this, I have done away with one half of this story's name: it is now simply **No One Left Behind**.

However, I will not even bother trying to cover up what this story is: it is the bastard child of In Flight (by Gabriel Blessing) and the errant musings of a few of his fans. (It is only with this consideration that the story makes any sense, in fact.) The story does diverge in places, and I may very well continue with different themes and ideas, but you would do well to remember that this is _far_ from the first iteration of the idea and would be best served by first reading _that_ story before moving on to this one. Indeed, this story was never written to stand on its own. I would have to make a great many revisions in order to do so. This might be done at the conclusion of the story.

In summation: this story requires that the reader has _some_ background knowledge in them. Not much, (because I loathe the idea of immutable canon. Remember that, it might come in handy.) but enough to know the skeleton of what _should_ be happening, and what has happened before. I really cannot stress how useful that information is in regards to this story.

Some people have also said that my style is similar to GB's. This might be so. But, if this is the case, it is an atrocious shorthand of his style. It is mimicry, and not very good at that. This is because I am not interested in telling a long story. Rest assured, if you see the narrator musing on something, there's probably a good reason for it. Unless it's a joke. In which case you're free to read however much you want into it.

Lastly, I now feel compelled to offer something of a warning for unwary readers: there are razor blades in the candy-fluff that is this story. Bad things _will_ happen, and it is quite possible that they might stab at your heart a bit. The further the story gets from its purely humorous origins, the darker things can get.

Rest assured, however, that there will be a happy ending involved in there. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it is _not_ an oncoming train. So, look forward to that.

**TL;DR (DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN: READ _THIS _IF YOU DIDN'T READ THE ABOVE!)**

1: THIS STORY SPRANG FORTH FROM In Flight! BY gabriel blessing! YOU SHOULD READ THAT FIRST!

2: I CHECK CANON! THEN I ALTER/IGNORE IT WHEN IT SUITS MY NEEDS! IF THIS RANKLES YOU, I INVITE YOU TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!

3: BAD THINGS HAPPEN! GOOD THINGS WILL HAPPEN! LIFE GOES ON!

Now, on to some other stuff:

**Disclaimer: Syroc owns nothing.** Not the setting, not the characters, and not even the story if you want to get technical. (This is a source of much distress to him.) What he _does_ own is an inordinate amount of pride for having written a story that people like. (Please do not tease him for this.)

Lastly, for those interested, head on over to the In Flight forums (Seen here: Fanfiction forum/The_Mechanics_of_In_Flight/88086/) to see some of the discussions about that story. The Omake forums is where I usually lurk, so feel free to stop by and harass everyone. Fresh blood is always appreciated.

Also, credit to the following people for helping it with some edit work. (They pointed out some silly mistakes I made.)

Angry Santo: Several saves so far. Well done matey.

Tekelili: For pointing out that Hercules' Noble Phantasm is actually Twelve Lives and not Nine Lives. I really should have remembered that one. He has twelve labors, not nine.

CrazySasori: For pointing out that I am a fool for not checking things out for myself, and it's Godhand and not Twelve Lives. Well played, sir.

Anonymous #1: For catching me using 'outfight' in place of 'outfit'. I have no idea how my brain mixed those two up.

Anonymous #2: For letting me know that I accidentally replace ch1 with ch2 when I was making some formatting edits. Again, I have no idea how I managed that.

Gojiro-san: For letting me know that I messed up an entire section of ch 9. I am _talented_ at mistakes!


	2. The Cure for Spontaneous Combustion

_Transcribed (sorta) from the forums:_

**Gwonbush**: Hey, someone indulge my errant musings.

**Syroc**: Huh, those are some interesting errant musings.

**Solopy567**: *_Cracks a whip on my back_* Back to work, omake-monkey!

**Syroc**: No, not the whip! *_Gets back to work*_

* * *

**No One Left Behind: The Cure For Spontaneous Combustion: Tongue**

"I _told_ you that mythology doesn't count as history, Rin." I chided the little mage that was currently glaring at the acceptance notice. "And I really think you could have benefited from some knowledge of econo-"

I was swiftly silenced as I became the focus of her ire.

"I don't want to hear that from someone like you." She growled at me, scowling fiercely. "You did even worse than I did in those subjects."

"Yes," I agree, and I cannot help but grin at her annoyance. Maybe she was starting to rub off on me? "But _I_ wasn't an honor student. _Nobody_ made a fanclub for _me_ because I was so incredibly fantastic. A prestigious school never fell over themselves to offer _me_ a place in their halls."

Rin's scowl deepened, but a moment later turned into one of her signature Scary Smiles.

"Yes, but at least _I_ was never chased out of the country by that schoo-"

"Oi! Emiya! Rin-sempai!"

The two of us stop our bickering long enough to spot Yasaka making his way towards us with an excited grin.

"Emiya," He began, focusing on me first. "Did you make it in?"

My mirth at teasing Rin a moment ago lessens somewhat. Not at the question, but rather at whom it wasn't also directed at.

I wasn't really surprised that Rin got all the respect from the young man, (because Rin was terrifying,) but sometimes I wished that he wouldn't simply assume that _she_ was the one wearing the pants in our relationship. Which wasn't to say that I was. Or that Saber was. Really, the politics of this whole affair could get messy.

But this _did_ present a unique opportunity.

"Why are you just asking me?" I ask, forcing myself to sound a bit miffed. I wanted to milk this for all it was worth. "Shouldn't you ask Rin too?"

Yasaka scoffed at that, folding his arms across his chest.

"Of _course_ Rin-sempai got in." He answered, grinning slightly. "There's no way she can't have- oh crap, flying handbag!"

The rest of what he'd been about to say was abruptly cut off as Rin's outrage found a new target, one that she wasn't at all opposed to abuse. After all, Yasaka wasn't making dinner tonight.

"How could they do this to me? They shouldn't have made us have to write it on those TVs with the letter-thingees in front of them! Whatever happened to hand written exams, huh? Pen and paper, dammit!"

"Ahh!" Yasaka cried out in pain and terror, trying to crawl away from the vicious onslaught of kicks and furious shrieks. "Save me Emiya-san! _Save me!_"

"You'll have to wait a minute, I just need to call my mom." I chuckle briefly at the other man's torment, glad that I wasn't the one under Rin's boot.

"_How can you be so cold?_" Yasaka demanded pathetically.

"Better you than me." I answer glibly, putting the phone to my ear.

"Shirou." My mother greeted me. "How'd you do?"

"Didn't make it." I answer ruefully. "The curriculum was just too different."

"And Rin?" She asked, and I could all but _see_ her frowning disapprovingly.

I suspect there would be no redeeming Rin in her eyes after the way she had jumped between us claiming that she wasn't about to let 'some strange woman' get all misty eyed around her boyfriend. Saber, who had been busy staring down Karasuba at the time to notice that, had thankfully avoided most of the fallout from the ensuing fight that erupted between Rin and my recently rediscovered mother. That Saber was also very polite and generally calm also probably went a long way to explain why Takami seemed to like her more than Rin. Saber seemed to be labeled the "good girl" in my mother's head, while Rin got to be the "bad girl". (And I would _never_ voice this theory with Rin for fear that she wouldfind some way to twist it against me.)

"Same story." I supply, and a moment later Rin let out a particularly loud wail of anger with excellent dramatic timing. "She's not taking it well."

"No," And now I can hear Takami chuckling quietly to herself. "I suppose she isn't. Hmm? Oh. Saber says she's looking forward to seeing you back home, and the dinner you're going to make." She lowered her voice slightly for what she said next. "Tell me, she isn't secretly a vacuum cleaner, is she? Because I made us some lunch not too long ago, and she can't _possibly_-"

"Yes, she can." I interrupt quickly, realizing the danger my mother was in. A hungry Saber was to be avoided at all costs. "You might want to consider making a snack of some kind for her."

I suppose that some people might have been ashamed to be living at their mother's house at my age, but there really hadn't been much of a choice. The three of us couldn't go back to Fuyuki city yet for obvious reasons, and none of us were exactly savvy in regards to how we'd find somewhere to live. The Clocktower had seen to most things when we'd been studying there, and before that there had always been the Emiya residence (or Tohsaka manor, as the case might be). And once my mother had pried the nature of my relationship to the two women in my life out of me, she had simply decreed that I would be living with her for the time being so that I wouldn't get into trouble, reluctantly agreeing to let Rin and Saber do so as well after a bit of arguing.

The apartment we were living in wasn't _exactly_ ideal, as Rin was sleeping on the couch, Saber in my until-now unknown little sister's old room and I was lodging in a seldom-used guest room, and we were all under the watchful eyes of Takami, who seemed to have a sixth sense for whenever Rin was getting frisky. (As if simply having her in the house wasn't already kind of a mood-killer.) But we muddled on in harmony, more or less.

"But she's so _small_, and _thin_!" My mother protested in disbelief. "Where does she keep it all?"

"Inside the gaping hole in reality that is her stomach." I manage to say this without the slightest snicker. I glance over to the side and notice that Rin seemed to be through with unleashing her pent-up stress and fury, while Yasaka seemed to be recovering from the beating he'd received at the hands of one of my girlfriends. "Listen, I'm going to have to hang up now. I think I may have to call an ambulance, but I'll try to be back in time for dinner."

"Hmmph," A mirthful snort was her answer. "See you back home then, Shirou."

*_Later at a random undisclosed street in Shin Tokyo!_*

"I hate you, Emiya." Yasaka growled at me. "How could you leave me like that?"

"I'm sorry Yasaka-san, but I really had to make a call." I tell him apologetically. My excuse apparently fell on deaf ears, as a snort was the only answer I got from it. "And besides, how was I suppose to know Rin would attack you like that?"

"She's an animal, Emiya!" Yasaka warned me. "You have to escape quickly, before-!"

"What's that, Yasaka-san?" Rin asked with cloying sweetness, that terrifying smile appearing on her face.

"N, nothing R, Rin-sempai!" Yasaka yelped, ducking away from the mage. "I wouldn't ever suggest you'd feed Emiya-san to an oni!"

I find myself smiling at their antics despite myself, wondering what I would have done if I Rin hadn't been there with me for all of this. I'd been fully prepared to leave on my own, but Rin simply wouldn't have had any of it. It was only when we were waiting for the airplane to lift off that I finally resigned myself to the fact that Saber and Rin would be joining me in exile. As much as it would cost them, as much danger as it put them in, they would be with me for this. Hopefully they wouldn't come to regret it.

I breathe deep, preparing to sigh in weary satisfaction at my situation. And then I noticed it. A cloying sweetness that I normally associated with magic, mingled in with something else. A hot, acrid stink that I would never be able to forget so long as I lived. Smoke.

I glance over to Rin, who nods in agreement and begins scanning our surroundings.

It wasn't the first time we had noticed these strange signatures, but it _was_ the first time they were so close.

"-And he's so cool and charming and amazing, but he's also friendly and polite! There really isn't anyone else like him!" Yasaka gushed, hopelessly oblivious that neither I nor Rin were wholly listening to him any more. "Sometimes I think he's the only reason I go to work."

"Ah," I agree, and then it seems to register with me that I should at least show a cursory interest in the conversation, or it'd look suspicious. "Wait, who are we talking about? Your boyfriend?"

"What?" Yasaka blusters, an intense redness burning on his cheeks as he does so. "N, no! I have a girlfriend! A girlfriend!"

Rin looks away for a moment to add in her own two cents.

"It's fine if you do, you know." She said, completely indifferent to his protestations. "We'd hardly judge you for something like that."

"It's not like that!" Yasaka whined, deflating as he realized that he was in a losing fight. After all, he'd just admitted that there was a wondering, amazing man that was the only reason he came to work some days.

"What's your boyfriend's name, anyways?" I ask, sniffing quietly to try and get a better fix on where the smell was coming from.

"Kagari-san!" The young man next to me shouted loudly, surpising both Rin and I.

"There's no need to shout," I tell him reproachfully. "I'm sure he's very nice and will make you very happy when he-"

Yasaka launched himself at me, wrapping an arm around my neck to silence me before I could embarrass him further.

"No, shut up!" He hissed at me. "He's not my boyfriend, and he's right over there and coming over, so _shut up_!"

"Yo," a new voice broke in, sounding amused. I looked up and had to admit that there might indeed be reason why Yasaka was nursing a bit of a man-crush. I wasn't attracted to men at all, but even I had to admit that the creature in front of me was remarkably easy on the eyes. And 'creature' was exactly right word for it too. It reeked of sweet honey and smoke. "Friends of yours, Yasaka-kun?"

"A, ah!" Yasaka agreed with a slight stammer, releasing me from his grip. "Yes, they're friends from prep-school! This is Emiya-san." He introduced me, and then nodded at Rin. "And this is Rin-sempai."

I'd been half-expecting the creature to attack us, or at the very least to menace us cryptically. It _had_ to know what we were, after all. If we could sense its power so easily, what were the chances that it would be completely ignorant of magi? The only question was what it could possibly _be_. It certainly wasn't human, but it didn't feel as blatantly _wrong_ was apostles or elementals or other more than mundane entities.

What I _hadn't_ been expecting was for it to instantly blush with the intensity of a small fire the moment it focussed on Rin, and then proceed to leap at her in what I could only call an 'attack glomp' and proceed to try and kiss her into submission. And from the way Rin was flailing in his grasp and shouting furiously into his face, I could only assume that it was the furthest thing apart from _her _mind as well. For a moment I could only stare in surprise at what I was seeing, so completely taken aback by such an impossibility that I could only stand numbly. And then the moment ended, and I had to give voice to my outrage.

"Stop molesting my girlfriend!"


	3. Serious Talk, Guy Talk, Girl Talk

**No One Left Behind: Serious Talk, Guy Talk, Girl Talk And A Different Kind Of Sword Fight**

"Shirou, who is this… _person_ and why is he standing so close to Rin?" Saber calmly demanded the moment the three of us entered the living room of my mother's apartment. There was no mistaking the disapproval in her voice, let alone the way she looked him up and down with a small frown. She knew what he was (or rather what he wasn't) and obviously did not approve of his presence.

And she wasn't alone. Neither Rin nor I were exactly happy with him either, though we had a much greater reason to be annoyed.

"Some random guy who tried to molest Rin." I answered pithily, causing the creature to frown at me. "And now we can't get rid of him."

"I have a _name_, you know." The creature complained.

"And if you hadn't tackled and tried to kiss me, I might learn it." Rin shot back, then frowned thoughtfully. "And why are you _still_ following us? We don't want anything to do with whatever's going on. Just leave us out of it."

Normally I might have been a bit more sympathetic toward the other male, but he hadn't exactly made a great first impression.

"If you'd just let me expla-"

"Homura?" My mother said this, her hands frozen halfway in the process of lighting a cigarette. (I made a mental not to shame her for smoking later on.) She was clearly surprised, if her tone was anything to go by. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Takami?" The creature sputtered, equally shocked.

"I thought your name was Kagari." Rin accused.

"That's my working name." The newly named Homura explained quickly. "But why is Takami here?"

"I live here." My mother answered tersely, growing impatient. "What's _your_ excuse?"

"A, ah, I followed Rin." Homura answered, stuttering slightly. He was obviously nervous about my mother, and there was a certain amount of familiarity about them"I think she's my... y'know?"

I was mildly surprised to see my mother tense for a moment at that, and then her eyes narrowed and focused on Rin. I was certain that a lesser mortal might have quailed under my mother's intense scrutiny, but it seemed that Tohsaka Rin was made of sterner stuff.

Fighting with murderous, superhuman incarnations of ancient (or at times not so ancient, as might be the case) heroes for your very life and _winning_ before moving on to the deadly and byzantine politics of the Clock-tower can do that to you.

Takami's scrutiny didn't last long before she gave a sigh of defeat and sat down heavily in an armchair.

"I think it might be best if you just explained everything to them so we can get it out of the way."

*_Later, after Homura explained everything!*_

"And so that's why I tried to kiss you." Homura finished his explanation.

We had all sat down to listen his account of what was happening in Shin-Tokyo lately, though we had waited long enough for me to brew some tea and make some quick snacks to nibble on. (Saber had innocently suggested that snacks would almost certainly be appreciated, and I had learned long ago that such polite requests should be treated as if they had come from a king. Which they had.)

Rin, Saber and I blinked as one, and though I couldn't be sure of it I was certain that they shared at least a _little_ of my skepticism to the now apparent alien. It wasn't that we didn't believe that Homura was telling the truth, only that he was telling the truth as he knew it. We had far too much experience with lying, malevolent overseers to not take any information (especially since this particular bit f information was second-hand,) without a grain of salt.

Eventually, Rin spoke up.

"So, you're an alien called a 'Sekirei' released from MBI in preparation for something called a 'Sekirei Plan'," (Saber and I both shot my mother an inquisitive glance at this, but she refused to meet our gaze.) "And apparently you're 'reacting' to me, which means that I am your Ashikabi. Which you seem to think means you can kiss me whenever you want. Is that about right?" Rin finished her grossly abbreviated version of Homura's explanation with a smile that would have made even Berserker give a moment's pause.

The effect it had on Homura was hugely gratifying.

"Eep," The alien yelped in surprise, recoiling from her before answering her question. "N, not _quite_. I don't really know what happened there, we're not supposed to react so violently-"

"Yes, that's all very well." Rin interrupted. "But like I said earlier, we're not getting involved in this Sekirei Plan."

"You're not- what?" Homura blurted out, honestly surprised. "But, you're my Ashikabi!"

It struck me as more than a little bit silly that Homura would rehash that particular point as if saying it enough times would suddenly solve things.

"We have plenty of reasons to not get involved, but you haven't told us why we should." My magi lover informed the alien primly. "This Sekirei plan is going to cause a _lot_ of trouble, and it would be best for all of us if we uninvolved in the conflict."

"Oh?" Takami said, raising an eyebrow. "And just who would be causing this trouble you're talking about, Rin-san? You seem very knowledgeable about such things for a normal schoolgirl."

Ah. And _there_ was my mother's dislike shining through. I had no doubt that she was even now dreaming up whole orders of circumstances in which I had been led astray by my tiny, philandering girlfriend. _Nevermind_ that I was adamant that it was my fault that my lovers and I had had to flee the country. It was Rin's fault. (I was beginning to resign myself to the simple fact that rationality was apparently an alien force to be fought with tooth and nail by the women in my life.)

"Eh?" Rin asked, distracted for a moment. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I suppressed the urge to sigh, and instead resigned myself to once again acting as mediator between the two women.

"She meant nothing, Rin." I assure her. "And she's right, Takami. We really can't get involved in this right now."

Homura seemed confused by my statement, and soon gave voice to his puzzlement.

"'We'?" He repeated cautiously. "No offence, Shirou-san, but nobody's asking _you_ to participate. This is Rin's decision alone." Oh, _wow_. How dense could one person _be?_ I'd like to believe that even _I_ wouldn't have made such an obvious blunder. Even Takami seemed to disapprove of his tactlessness. "Besides, what can a human do against a Sekirei?"

For a moment I could only _stare_ at the man in disbelief, though I quickly recovered. I concluded then and there that there was no way he could be aware of the existence of thaumaturgy, because if he was he _would never have said something so silly_. Even the most innocuous, most harmless-looking creature could carry within it lethal power, and humans were _far_ from harmless even without magic. Besides, he couldn't possibly know that he was in the presence of a prodigy in the magical arts, a magus-killer with the power to make it rain _swords_ and a Heroic Spirit with some of the most powerful conceptual weapons known to the thaumaturgical world. But it seems that between Saber and I, only one of us managed to reign in their indignation.

Saber froze in the act of sipping her tea, and then with careful deliberation brought the cup down to the coffee table. With green eyes that had stared down Berserker without blinking, she glared at the alien.

"It is _not_ a decision for Rin alone, because she knows full well that as her lovers Shirou and I would not hesitate to fight alongside her." The woman who had been King of the Isles declared imperiously. "No matter the odds, or who we faced. In this, we could do no less."

Yes! Way to go Saber! Say it like it is!

My mother seemed surprised at the fierce loyalty that Saber was exhibiting, as though she hadn't _really_ believed that the three of us be in a happy, healthy relationship. (Although there were times when I doubted that 'healthy' was the right word to use, especially when Rin got into one of her more adventurous moods.) I think Saber's now apparent devotion to both Rin and I might be opening my mother's eyes a little bit.

"But Rin wouldn't be fighting!" Homura protested. "Only Sekirei fight in the plan!"

Oh my. Such naivete.

"But what's to stop Ashikabi from attacking one another? Or unscrupulous Sekirei?" I ask innocently, and I nod in satisfaction when I see the alien open his mouth to answer then freeze, actually considering the question. "You're only one person, and you don't look particularly strong either." Homura balked at that. Tough cookies for him. The day I saw him take down an Apostle without help was the day I would trust him to have a misleading appearance. "Saber and I would of course protect Rin to our utmost abilities."

Rin sipped daintily at her tea, but she wasn't fooling anyone. I could see the faint blush on her cheeks as well as that crooked little smile. After managing to get her blush under control she set her cup back down and addressed the alien once more.

"As you can see, I wouldn't be fighting alone." She calmly assessed, and after knowing her for so long I could sense the smugness that she was trying to hide. "And even if I was, it would be stupid of me to involve myself in such a fight in my circumstances."

"But-" Homura began, but was swiftly interrupted by Takami, who seemed to have had enough of the discussion.

"Just give up already, Homura." She advised, and I noted with some concern that there was an unlit cigarette once more in her hand. "If I can't get them to tell me what their circumstances are even when they're living with me then you don't have a chance. Now, can you give me a light?"

She nodded pointedly at the cigarette that she held between her index and middle fingers. Homura looked as if he was about to argue, then sagged in defeat. He leaned forward and held his fingers just beneath the cigarette, then snapped his fingers.

I imagine that what he had _meant_ to do was just create a small flame much like that of a lighter's. It would have been a harmless thing, completely benign.

Alas, that was not to be. Instead, a plume of fire blazed into life from his hand with a loud roar for a brief second before he seemed to regain control of his powers.

For a long time we could all only stare in surprise at where the gout of flame had been. And then…

"What the hell was _that_?" Rin demanded, furious. "How did you do that?"

I would have to agree. I knew that the creature was magical, but _that_ was just absurd.

Homura seemed surprised at the question as well as a little bit sheepish.

"Well, I might have lost control of my powers for a bit. Here, let me try again…"

"But there wasn't any kind of incantation or-" Rin started to say, but was thankfully interrupted.

_**Fwoosh!**_

Takami stared hard at the burning remnant between her fingers that had been her cigarette, then casually drowned it with the remainder of her tea.

"That's fine," she said with a sigh. "I didn't really want one anyway."

"I don't understand, I usually have a lot more control than this..." The alien said in befuddlement. He turned to Takami with a look of inquiry in his eyes. "Do you think that it has to do with my... situation?"

My mother frowned contemplatively, though there also seemed to be a bit of contrition in there as well. Something about the question bothered her, I could tell. But that would have to take second seat to the more question: just how was Takami involved with this alien? Why would he ask her of all people about why his powers might be going out of control. I would have to find out what she knew about all of this later. If she was somehow involved in all of this, then Rin, Saber and I were quite possibly a great deal less safe than I had initially assumed. If the Clock-tower got wind of what was going on here... I did not even want to entertain the possibility.

My mother gave the alien a considering look, then gave a small shrug.

"It's possible." She admitted reluctantly. "You were always a special case."

"Yeah." Homura agreed, his tone turning dark. "'Special'. That's one way of putting it."

"Can someone please explain what's going on?" Rin at last demanded.

My mother and the alien seemed to realize that they weren't alone, and that my two lovers and I had heard every word of what they had said. The two looked hesitant for a moment, but then realized that we already knew just about everything there _was_ to know about all of this.

Homura gave an inquisitive look towards Takami, who shrugged. Taking this as permission to explain once more, the alien began to tell us just what he suspected his probem might be.

"Well, you see, I'm kinda of unique among Sekirei," he admitted, as though this was something of a sore topic with him. "My powers have always been pretty... well, volatile I suppose. I think being around you might have-"

_**Fwoosh!**_

As if to highlight the point he was about to make, a plume of fire burst into life from his hands, surprising us all. It was so startling that Takami was forced to throw herself to the side.

"Damn it Homura, stop it!" She shouted.

"I'm _trying_ to!" The Sekirei answered, grimacing as he tried to reign in whatever it was that was fueling his apparently out of control magic.

Trails of smoke began to rise from the collar of his suit even as beads of sweat began racing down his face. The effort apparently was enough to reign in the fire, as the fire quickly died back down.

"Gh," Homura grunted, and collapsed backwards into his seat in fatigue. "T, this wasn't what I thought would happen when I met my Ashikabi." He complained.

I frown at this, then spoke up.

"I'm still not quite sure what exactly is going on right now in any case." I admit, not at all afraid to show my confusion. "What's happening to your powers?"

"I think my Reaction to Rin might have set something off inside of me." He explained quickly, closing his eyes in order to better concentrate. "I might be losing control..."

Unsurprisingly, it was Rin that followed up on this.

"And then you'll burn yourself up, right?" She asked, sounding more curious at the idea than worried. It caused my mother to look at Rin with a calculating look, no doubt reevaluating the tiny mage. Homura merely opened his eyes long enough to look her with a betrayed look.

"Probably." He reluctantly agreed.

Despite my own misgivings, despite my dislike of the alien, despite _how stupid_ all of this was, I couldn't help but feel more than a little sympathetic towards him. It was that benevolent streak in me, that impulse to help whenever I could. I couldn't just stand by and let someone die if there was a way I could help them.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" I ask, which earned me a look of surprise from Takami and Homura. Especially Homura, who had been the target of my annoyance for almost the entirety of our brief acquaintance.

"No, not you." Homura answered eventually, then nodded towards Rin. "But if Rin became my Ashikabi I would be able to stabilize enough to get this back under control."

Ah. Dilemma.

I look towards Rin, who was in turn looking uncertainly between Saber and I. Saber, for her part, looks to be merely impassive. But I can recognize a certain reluctance in her, an unwillingness to let this happen but a hesitance to let Rin get herself involved in this. There was no easy answer to this situation. On the one hand, we would be getting ourselves into a mess that might bring the Clock Tower down on us with a fury. On the other, we could let someone burn to death.

"Saber? What do you think of this?" Rin finally asked.

The swordswoman looked away, still uncertain.

"I will support you in whatever decision you make." She said, hedging her bets while offering no real opinion.

Rin turned next to me, a beseeching look on her face.

I hated it when she did that. She was so much _better_ at making decisions and planning than I was, after all. I always felt woefully inept whenever these situations popped up. Oh well. I would just have to answer honestly.

"I'd like to help him." I admitted uneasily. "At least to make sure he didn't die."

The tiny mage in front of my took this with a nod, biting her lower lip as she considered just what she should do. For a moment I was uncertain just what her decision would be, but then she nodded once more, this time to herself, and turned to Homura.

"Alright," She announced at last, summoning every ounce of authority she could muster into her voice. (Which was an impressive amount, even I had to admit.) "Is there some kind of ceremony or something?"

"All you have to do is kiss me." Homura assured.

"Right." Rin said, more to herself than anyone else.

She approached the reclining Sekirei, then bent over to do just that. When their lips were about to meet, however, Homura stopped her.

"I just want you to promise one thing first." Homura pleaded, placing a finger on Rin's lips.

"I don't think you're in a position to make demands!" Rin said with a huff, blushing at the intimate gesture.

"Just make sure you won't interfere in my responsibilities." The alien continued, grimacing in pain. "I vowed that I would protect all the unwinged Sekirei until they had found their Ashikabis. I'd like to keep that vow."

"Fine." Rin answered, then grinned wickedly. "In return, you have to agree to let me study you!"

Homura's eyes bugged out for a moment, then he muttered something about 'another Matsu'. "Alright, I promise." He agreed.

And then they kissed.

Wings of fire unfurled from behind the alien, incinerating the back of his chain and scorching the walls of my mother's apartment. (I suddenly felt very uncertain about my decision to help the strange creature. I couldn't imagine that Takami would be happy with the damages done to her house.) My nostrils were filled with the stink of fire and smoke, and not just the physical kind. The magic that Homura was spilling out was obscenely powerful, the likes of which any magi would _kill_ to learn how to use.

And then the wings dissipated, leaving only Rin and Homura.

I am convinced that I am cursed by whatever higher power it was that dictated the fates of mortals, as it was in that exact moment that my little sister, Yukari, burst into the room after having snuck into the apartment with whatever secret agenda she always seemed to have. Most of them involved tackle-hugging me at every possible opportunity.

And the first thing she saw when she entered the room was Rin kissing some strange guy she'd never seen before.

Her face contorted into an expression of rage, and then she pointed an accusatory finger at my lover.

"_You!_ How _dare_ you cheat on my onii-chan!" She demanded, full of fury. "I _knew_ my onii-chan made a mistake in having an evil succubus like you as his girlfriend!"

"'Evil succubus'?" Rin repeats, an eyebrow twitching wildly.

"Just you wait until I tell him about this, you hag!" My sister continues, her eyes filled with righteous fire. "He'll cut you off like a gangrenous hand!"

I suppress the urge to sigh. Really, Yukari's timing was _horrible_.

"Yukari-" I began, but my little sister was far too busy being indignant on my behalf to notice my existence.

"And then it'll just be me and onii-chan and Saber-chan, and I'll finally have the big brother and sister I always wanted, and we'll all be happy and-"

"Yukari," I tried again, though I was met with just as much success as before.

"-_And you'll regret ever cheating on him you harpy-woman!"_

Rin, while initially surprised, recovered quickly and seemed to have taken the rest of Yukari's little meltdown in stride.

"Are you done?" She asked coolly, raising an eyebrow in question. As she did, she pointed meaningfully towards me.

"What?" Yukari demanded, then turned her gaze to where Rin was pointing and was hugely surprised to find me at last.

I'm so glad that I was at the forefront of my sister's mind.

"_Onii-chan!_" She started, leaping towards me. "_You'll never guess what I just saw-"_

"I was here too, Yukari." I tell her patiently, hoping that that would confuse her long enough for me to calm her down. "I saw all of it."

"Bwuh?" My sister said intelligently, and quickly looked back to Rin and Homura, then back to me. And then some kind of realization dawned on her. By the perverse leer that slowly formed on her lips I doubt it was something I wanted to even consider trying to figure out. "_Ohh_... so, it's like _that_, huh?"

"I don't know what you're thinking of, but no." I inform her.

"But-"

"No."

"Why no-

"Because _no_."

"Aww." Yukari was clearly disappointed in my lack of lasciviousness. Then she looked back to Rin and Homura, the former looking slightly amused and the latter looking like he wanted to crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment on my behalf.

Hmmph. He'd have to start getting used to it, now that he had gotten us all involved in this 'Sekirei Plan'.

Yukari had at least a slight amount of grace, and let it show with some small amount of contrition.

"Err, sorry Rin-chan." She apologized, somewhat meekly.

Rin nodded, her expression not changing for a moment.

"Did you pick up those books?" She demanded imperiously, letting nothing show.

Yukari brightened up at that, and began fishing through her handbag.

"Ahh, that's right!" She exclaimed, then sidled up to Rin. "They came in this morning! Do you want to read them now or-"

Wait, what? What kind of books was Rin getting from- oh _no_.

"Rin, tell me she isn't talking about what I think she is." I ask with a pleading note.

The tiny mage blushed slightly at my question, but refused to answer.

"Let's sort it out in your room, Yukari." Rin suggested, completely brushing me off.

Saber rose at that, looking affronted.

"I sleep in that room." She stated."I do not think it would be proper for the two of you to be there without me."

And with that the three of them were gone, Rin already sifting through a book that Yukari had passed her.

Homura made as if to follow, but I laid a hand down on the alien's shoulder and stopped him from doing so.

"You don't want to listen to what's going on over there." I advised him solemnly.

"Why not? What're they going to talk about?"

"Comics." It sounds so _innocent_ when I say it like that, without explaining the truth of things. "And maybe you. And me."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

"They're very _special_ comics." I say pointedly.

"Oh." Homura said at last, recognition dawning on him at last. "_Oooh…_"

"Yes." I decided to address an issue that had been bothering me for a while now. "How exactly do you know Takami?"

Maybe it was my use of her name that caused him to be a bit more truthful than he might otherwise have been if he remembered that the woman he was currently speaking was my mother.

"I know her from work." He answers calmly.

"Ah?" There was something off about this situation… "And just what kind of job do you have that you need a 'working name'?" Suspicion begins to ride my tone, but apparently not enough to merit the alien in front of me hesitating.

"I'm a host."

Oh, a host. Oh. A _host._ And he knows Takami from-

"Homura." The name comes out like a curse from my mouth. "I think you need to wait outside."

"Huh- What?" Homura asked, confused. "Why?"

"Because otherwise I might have to throw you out a window for having sex with my mother."

"Your _what?_"

*_With the ladies!*_

"So, what's the deal with the bishounen?" Yukari asked excitedly. "And is onii-chan realy okay with you making out with other guys?"

Rin hid her face with the comic she was reading, obscuring a blush that was forming once more on her cheeks.

"It's not like that," She denied hotly. "He just needed help, and-"

"_Ooh_!" Yukari's excitement flared up again. "Is it like those 'broke straight guys' movies?"

"What?" Rin asked, already bewildered. She poked her face back out from the comic in order to shoot Yukari a questioning look. "What are you talking about?"

"Y'know, a hot guy who's desperate for money, will do _anything_ for it. Y'know...?"

"Do you mean...?"

"_Yes!_"

"Wha- _no!_" Rin exclaimed, once again hiding a blush behind her comic. "Shirou isn't into that sort of thing." She mumbled into the pages quietly.

"But that guy was giving you the lover's eyes!" Yukari protested. "He'd _totally_ do anything you asked him to! I _know_ it!"

"He did say something like that in his explanation." Saber mused thoughtfully, and surreptitiously fished a comic from Yukari's bag. "'Eternally devoted', I think his words were."

"See!" Yukari exclaimed. "All you'd have to do is get started on Shirou, then have the bishounen sneak in-"

"_We're not talking about this_." Rin declared fiercely.

"C'mon Rin-nee, you could have them _sword fight_!" Yukari pressed, trying to get the mage to warm up to the idea.

Saber froze at that, then tilted her head to the side contemplatively.

"I did not take him for a swordsman." She said slowly, mulling something over in her head. "I may have to cross blades with him when time permits."

Yukari froze at this, and then turned with glacial speed in order to face Saber. The young woman looked Saber up and down, scrutinizing everything about her intensely

"You mean _you_ have one too, Saber-ne- er, -chan?" She asked at last, stark disbelief plain on her face.

"Of course." Saber said proudly, if a bit warily. The manic look in Yukari's eyes was almost as terrifying as one of Rin's patent smiles. It carried with it promise of something that Saber wasn't even sure she wanted to contemplate.

"And does Shirou know about it?" Yukari asked, staring hard.

"Well, he has some experience handling it." The swordswoman admitted reluctantly, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the intensity with which Yukari was regarding her. "And I taught him how to use his as well. I should _hope_ that he knows by now."

Yukari was silent for a long time, and then turned back to Rin.

"_See_?" She said, pointing a quivering finger at Saber. "He'd _totally_ be up for it!"

Rin pressed her face into the pages of her comic, and tried hard not to burst out laughing.


	4. Like Fire And Ice

**No One Left Behind: Like Fire And Ice**

"So you mean that this card has unlimited credit, is universally accepted and I'm _expected_ to use it while participating in this Sekirei Plan?" Rin asked, staring fixedly at the innocuous piece of plastic in her hands.

"Well, MBI will certainly be using it to monitor your transactions, but yeah." Homura explained.

Rin looked up from the card, a slow smile dawning on her features and a cackle bubbling up from her throat.

"Eheh... Heeheehahaha_HAHAHA!_" She laughed, and I knew well why she did.

For the longest time one of the greatest limitations that Rin had had in regards to her progress in the magical arts were her rather meager sources of currency. That had been the main reason for her enlisting herself into the Clock-tower in the first place: they had been all too willing to provide her with all the resources she wanted. And it had also been one of the greatest sources of irritation with her while we had been studying for our entrance examinations: wasting her time with such 'useless' knowledge while she could instead be focusing on her magic had left her more than a little frustrated.

And along came MBI and handily solved that problem for her. She wouldn't even have to file reports with them, if I had understood Homura correctly. She would have what every magus secretly craved: completely independent research. Even I had to agree that this was quite a windfall, though we would have to use it with care. It wouldn't do for MBI to-

"Shirou!" Rin barked out. "We're hitting up every jeweler in the city! Find out where we can find them, and the fastest route!"

-Or I suppose we could abuse it as grossly as we could until whoever it was that was responsible for monitoring our transactions realized that we were fleecing them for everything we could get and promptly cut us off. That could work too.

"As much as I enjoy listening to your plans to swindle my company out of large amounts of money," Takami admonished obliquely, putting down her morning tea. (It had only taken _one_ cup for coffee to stop being the preferred drink in the mornings, just as it had only taken one meal for me to assert my dominance of the kitchen, though Rin would occasionally make a spirited effort to defeat me occasionally.) "Do you think this conversation could wait until I at least get to work so I can have some plausible deniability?"

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to have lived a life where plotting and scheming around the breakfast table was commonplace in times of strife. But that was not to be, and as such both Rin and I were awkwardly reminded that we weren't huddled around our table in the rented flat in London, or the low table of the Emiya household. And by the way Saber and Homura were frowning disapprovingly, we were the only ones who had.

Oh well. She already knows.

"I'm on it." I agreed, and stood up from the table.

Though I might not necessarily approve of what Rin had in mind, I had to agree with the sentiment. We were going to war once more: it would be _stupid_ not to take advantage of whatever resource we had at our disposal.

"Jewelers?" Homura asked, and I could all but see the question marks sprouting up behind him. I suppose to someone who didn't know the peculiarities of Rin's magecraft the choice might seem odd.

Thankfully, Rin seemed to have it covered.

"It's a trick for converting currency," She calmly explained, going into her signature 'why don't you know this already, you idiot?' pose. I knew from experience just how embarrassing it could be to have something explained when Rin was like that, and hopefully that would be enough to stop Homura from inquiring further. "Usually its done in countries where people are dramatic market changes or inflation, so that instead of having a lot of now-worthless money they instead have a bag full of gold and gems which are always valuable tosomeone. But in our case, we're converting MBI funds for jewelry, and then whenever I need to, I can just trade them in for money. But all MBI will know is that today I bought every piece of jewelry in the city."

"Oh." The Sekirei said in a defeated tone, no doubt reeling from Rin's epic levels of condescension. "That's actually a good idea."

"You seem _very_ familiar with this sort of thing, Rin-chan." My mother noted calmly. "Do you have a lot of experience with this-"

"Takami." I interrupt her. "We're getting involved in a conflict with superhuman beings from another world. I don't think it's entirely out of place for us to look for every possible advantage we can seize upon, is it?"

The woman scowled fiercely for a moment, but didn't say anything. I have little doubt that she was mostly annoyed that I had turned things around on her so quickly.

"I suppose not," She announced at last, taking a deep swig of her tea and setting her empty cup aside. "Alright, I'll run interference for you today, but after that you're on your own."

"Yes! Carte Blanche!" Rin exclaimed, pumping her fist in triumph. "Good work Shirou! Now go and draw us up a map!"

"Alright, I'll go look in the phonebook." I agree.

"Phonebook?" My mother asked, quirking an eyebrow at me. "Why would you need a phonebook?"

"Because I don't know where all the jewelers in Shin-Tokyo are?" I answer uncertainly, wondering just why there would be some confusion on the matter. It seemed perfectly reasonable tome. Need to find out where something is? Phonebook.

"Why don't you use your cellphone?"

"... Because cellphones are for calling people?" I hazarded, the feeling of uncertainty growing with each moment. "What else would I use it for?"

Takami stared hard at me for a long time, her mouth opening and closing a few times as she searched for words to give voice to whatever it was that was going through her mind. Eventually she simply gave up, and instead gave a deep sigh of disappointment.

"My son the Luddite." She said mournfully. "What kind of geneticist can't use machines?"

My mother was still clutching hard onto the notion that I would one day make her unspeakably proud by following her footsteps enter into the mind-bogglingly complex world of advanced genetics. I didn't yet have the heart to tell her that that particular branch of science interested me about as much as social-studies and economics interested Rin: none at all. Material engineering, especially in the fields of metal, were a great deal more relevant to my interests.

Luckily for me, Homura chose that moment to speak up and change the subject.

"Actually, that reminds me. Why _haven't_ you gotten a call yet? You should have gotten one as soon as I was winged."

"Call?" Rin repeated, perplexed.

"Indeed." Saber agreed. "Who would call on us at such an hour?"

"No, I mean on your phone." Homura clarified, drawing a pair of blank looks from Rin and Saber. Eventually, Rin turned to Takami.

"Has anyone called us?" She asked hesitantly, as if slightly unsure. "I haven't seen or heard a phone here yet, so I thought that maybe you didn't have one."

Takami stared hard at Rin for a moment, and then laughed loudly before rising from the table to head off to work.

"Thanks for entertaining me this morning, kids." She called back to us, still chuckling to herself.

For what seemed like a long time, nobody spoke at the table. I myself was trying to reign in my amusement at Rin's ignorance. It seemed that living a life as a magus had produced some glaring holes in her common knowledge.

I cleared my throat pointedly, drawing Homura's attention to me.

"They don't have cellphones." I informed him.

I'm not exactly sure of what I drew the most amusement from after I made this statement: watching Homura's face make a slow change from incomprehension to perplexity and then to pure disbelief, or the embarrassed, indignant glare Rin was leveling at the both of us.

"Wh, what does that have to do with anything?" The tiny magus demanded harshly. "Surely cell-phones are only for those with money to waste?"

Oh, the ancient preconceptions about technology. There were times when I wondered whether Rin lived in her own personal reality marble where it was permanently in the early 90's, but then I remembered that even _she_ was a few centuries ahead of the curve in comparison to the vast majority of the magical community. If ever there came a day when magic failed to work, there was going to be a great many ancient and respected lineages and organizations who were going to be more than a little uncomfortable trying to readjust to a world they had left behind sometime in the medieval age.

Like Takami had a few moments before, Homura opened and closed his mouth several times in an attempt to begin explaining just howwrongwhat he'd just heard was. Eventually he gave up, and hung his head in defeat.

"Let's pick those out for you two as well." I suggested lightly, and resumed my search for the elusive phonebook. "It'll be good if we can keep in contact if separated."

*_Later, at a random undisclosed street!*_

"Do you _always_ carry one of those weird jeweler's magnifying-glass things, Rin?" A thoroughly bewildered Homura asked, trailing behind her almost like a lost puppy while he looked into one of the many small velvet bags that we had procured after a long day of shopping.

"It's called a loupe. And yes." Rin answered him, and though she was abrupt I knew that it was only because she was thinking of how she could best take advantage of the great bounty she had received today. "It's always best to have one on hand to verify the authenticity and purity of a gem as well as the quality of the cut."

"Huh." The alien muttered, still staring at the glittering contents of the bag he held. "I never thought you'd be so knowledgeable about jewelry."

"It comes with the territory." Rin said with a shrug, and resumed playing with the object in her hands. "Chess? This thing can play _chess_? How is that even possible?"

"The marvels of modern technology." I quip effortlessly, though not for the first time. She had said something to that effect several times already.

"Shirou." Saber interjected from my side, frowning intensely at her own. "I am having difficulty with mine. I left it alone for a few moments, and now I cannot use it. I think we may have purchased a defective."

"Why is this thing playing bad music at me?" Rin demanded suddenly, holding her phone as far away from her as possible. "Ahh! Shirou! Make it stop!"

I glare over at Homura, who was trying (and failing) to contain a smile at my expense. This did nothing to endear him to me, though I could see why he would be so amused.

After my morning hunt for a phonebook had failed to produce anything more recent than a decade ago, Homura had seemed to have had enough of watching me apparently waste time and had whipped out his own phone and a few moments later provided a list of stores along with the quickest directions. He'd said something about 'boggle maps' or some such ridiculousness. I had half been expecting his directions to lead us nowhere, but had been incredibly surprised when more often than not they proved to be accurate, and where they were not he had been able to find corrections in the discrepancies.

I found it all to be very suspicious.

In any case, after a long and fruitful trip in which Rin had successfully bullied, frightened and out-haggled every reputable jeweler in the city (and even a few of the others) out of the majority of their gems. It had been an interesting sight to witness: elder, immaculately dressed men with serious expressions had all been blindsided by some random girl with her own loupe and little flashlight and then had their wares bought out from under them. Homura, for his part, had been perplexed at how the girl who didn't know a thing about phones could so casually argue how the spectrum of the gem indicated that it was of inferior quality, and thus should be sold at a much smaller price.

He had been less impressed with our foray into the final stop on our way home: the electronics store. Even I had had to admit that I had lost a hold on my own tenuous grip on technology as the salesman had calmly listed everything that the thin piece of plastic was apparently capable of. Homura had had to see to the purchase of phones for my two lovers, and while he was confident that he had gotten the most advanced on the market I couldn't help but wonder at the wisdom of that.

It might have been better if he'd started them off with something a little simpler. Like one of those toy-phones for children.

I freeze momentarily, sniffing at the air with a deep frown.

There it was again. That sweet smell of magic, but tainted with something else. It was like the crispness of a cold winter morning. It reminded me of Homura, but it was _much_ stronger.

Crap. Was it possible that we would meet an enemy so soon?

I look over to Rin, who seemed to have sensed my sudden tenseness and looked to see what the source of my discomfort was. Saber was also sporting a small frown as she recognized something about the area that she could not quite place.

"Ma-" I begin, then stop myself from continuing. It would not do to reveal the existence of magic. "Sekirei." I say instead. It was probably an accurate guess in any case.

"What?" Homura asks, surprised at the sudden statement. The stink of smoke overwhelms the smell of winter for a moment as the alien summoned his own powers. "Where?"

I sniff again, trying to make out the smell once again in spite of distraction that Homura's abilities were creating. It did not take me long to find it again, though: it was very powerful in spite of its subtlety. I pointed in the direction in which I suspected the smell was coming from.

"Over there." I said confidently.

Everyone followed my finger to where it pointed.

Homura spoke first once he had.

"Err, that's a wall Shirou." Homura said carefully. "Unless it's a very cunningly disguised Sekirei, I don't think-"

"_Behind_ it." I snapped at him, more than a little annoyed at the condescension in his voice.

"I too sense something." Saber said with a frown. "Should we investigate?"

"It _is_ a potential danger." I point out. "There might be others out there, waiting for us to ambush us."

"But do they intend to lure us in with a single opponent and then strike at us?" Saber mused, pursing her lips together. "Shirou. I will require a blade for this fight."

Of course she would. Invisible Air just wouldn't be appropriate in the middle of the city, after all. No cutting things up with phantasmal swords where just anyone could see it.

"I'll see what I can do." I answer her obliquely, before turning to my other lover. "Rin? What do you think?"

Rin shook her head, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Even if it _is_ a trap, they couldn't know that we know it's a trap." She pointed out.

"Uhm, what exactly is going on here?" Homura asked, confused. "Why are you talking like you're going to fight?"

The three of us all give him a blank look.

"I thought we went through this _yesterday_." I ask rhetorically. "You can't stop us from fighting in this war."

"War? What war?" Homura demanded, sounding confused. "What are you _talking_ abou-"

"Enough." Saber silenced him calmly. "We must act soon, before our enemy realizes something has happened."

"Then we investigate?" I ask at the group at large.

Saber nodded, and Rin followed suit a moment later. Homura looks like he wanted to protest, but realized that he already been outvoted. And it wasn't like his opinion had held much weight so far. (Which was, I suppose, a bit unfair and foolish. Out of all of us, _he_ was the most informed on the whole 'Sekirei Plan' situation.) So instead he simply sighed in defeat.

And so it was that the four of us went out to search out our first fight on the first day of the Sekirei Plan.

The smell eventually led us to a park, and by then the smell of cold was mirrored by a noticeable drop in temperature. Our breath came out as mist as we drew closer. On our way we passed several people, many couples hoping to get the most out of the last few days of relative warmth before winter set in, many of which were talking fiercely amongst themselves about some 'poor girl'.

The more I heard them say that, the more I doubted my original suspicion that what I was sensing was a threat.

And when I saw her, I had to admit that I wasverywrong.

Sitting alone, with her back to a rail, a forlorn expression and wearing a bloody lab-coat, was the source of the smell. There was no mistaking her, not with the strange crest on her forehead. The way held herself, the way she simply ignored the world around her, reminded me of nothing so much as a puppet that had suddenly had its strings severed. It was as if there was no life in her.

To my side, I could hear Homura give a horrified whisper of "Scrap Number".

Without hesitation, I approached the still young woman. I ignored the strangled noise that Homura gave as I did so.

She did not even stir when I squatted down next her, draping my own jacket over her to provide a second layer of warmth for her.

"Are you alright?"

For a moment she did nothing. And then she turned to me, a hollow look in her eyes.

"I'm broken." She whispered to me, and then turned away. "A failure..."

"Shirou-" Rin began.

"Is there somewhere you can go?" I ask her, not giving Rin a chance to protest. "Some kind of facility I can take you?"

"I can't go back." She whispered, and huddled up even closer than before. "I'm a failure. I can never go back."

I felt myself grow cold at that, something hard and unbending resurfacing after so long of the relative pleasantness that living with Takami and studying with Rin. It was that old iron, the resolute and unyielding desire to help others.

"Get up." I tell her, and I allowed no room for question in my voice. The woman blinked at the sound, and looked at me once again but this time as if she was actually seeing me for the first time. "I can't just leave you like this."

"Shirou!"

Behind me, Homura had apparently come out of whatever stupor he had fallen into upon seeing the young woman in front of us and.

I frowned, and craned my head back to shoot him an inquiring look.

"You can't _do_ that, she's a _scrap_!" He hissed at me, and though I couldn't see her wholly I knew the woman shrank in on herself even more at his accusation.

The iron in my voice must have reappeared in my expression, because he seemed to recoil a bit when I next spoke. I don't think he was used to humans treating him like this.

"She's _hurt_." I state simply. "She needs help."

"You don't understand, she's _dangerous_!"

"So were you, but I wanted to help you as well." I retort. "No matter how much I disliked what doing so meant."

This seemed to take some of the wind out of the alien's sails, but he didn't seem like he was going to back down just yet.

Instead of quarreling further with him I turned back to the pale young woman, who was watching me with such intense fixation that for a moment I was almost worried.

"Can you walk on your own?" I at last ask her gently.

Homura seemed to have rallied himself for a second attempt to dissuade me.

"You can't do this, Shirou! You're putting everyone at risk!" The fiery male protested.

I find myself laughing at that in spite of the gravity of the situation. Maybe even because of it.

"You have no idea how true that is." I agree without even looking at him.

"This isn't funny!" Homura protested.

"Neither is leaving someone half-naked, confused and alone in a park at night with winter well on its way." I retort right back at him without missing a beat. "But that's what you're suggesting I do."

"Saving her will only cause problems for us!" The alien protested, not knowing how incredibly _badly_ he had just chosen his words. "She's too dangero-"

I like to think of myself as a peaceful person for the most part. I like to help others. It is one of the greatest joys in my life. I try to be merciful as often as I possibly can, even over the protests of my lovers at times. I _like_ to do housework in my spare time.

But I would not sit still and let some random alien that thought it knew best lecture me on who I could and couldn't save. I had already failed too many times to ever want to stop trying.

Which was why I felt somewhat justified in turning around and slapping Homura across the face with a Reinforced backhand, silencing him before he could spout any more nonsense at me. I knew that I shouldn't have, I knew that it was wrong, but I would not tolerate him mocking the ideal I had fought so hard to protect.

Homura staggered away, staring hard at me in shock. No doubt this was the first time a human had ever dared to abuse him in such a way. Maybe even the first time anybody_could_ have.

Tough luck. It was time for him to learn that he couldn't just say _anything_ in the name of protecting his Ashikabi.

"You asked Rin to make a promise to you, that she would allow you continue protecting the unwinged of your kind. You call yourself their _protector_." I say to him, and then I turn back to the now wide-eyed woman in the bloody shirt. "How _dare_ you claim to be such, and then turn your back on someone who needs your help?"

I kneel down, and help the woman to her feet (trying desperately to protect as much of her modesty as possible while doing so. As large as the lab-coat was, the woman's ample chest was giving it a hard time of covering her.)

"Rin, Saber, I'll be heading back home without you."I inform them, then turn back to the young woman who was watching all of this unfold with wide eyes filled with... something. It was difficult to say, really. It looked like need, or desire, but seemed more desperate than either of those. I realized then that she was still half-naked, and felt very stupid for not doing so sooner. "Are you cold?"

"Cold?" She asks, as if the question did not make sense to her.

I sighed, and pulled out my phone to call for a cab. I don't think the train would be the greatest place for her at the moment.

"Don't worry," I tell her, forcing myself to sound as warm and comforting as I could. "I'll take care of you."

"Take care of me..." She repeated, and that... something her in her eyes reappeared once more.

"We will see you at home, Shirou." Saber said to our retreating back.

"Yeah," Rin agreed, sounding much less happy about it. "See you there."


	5. The Bird House

**No One Left Behind: The Bird House**

Takami stood in the door-frame to her apartment, clutching her steaming cup of coffee like it was a weapon that could sunder mountains under the right conditions. She took us all in with a stony frown, her arms crossed in front of her in a way that somehow managed to convey the feeling that attempting to cross that threshold would cause no end of trouble. And quite possibly the apocalypse. It seemed there would be no entering her house without her permission.

And then, as if passing down holy judgment from a god, she spoke.

"There is no way all of you can stay here." She declared. Her gaze focused on Rin a moment later, her frown deepening slightly, before she turned to me. "Someone has got to go."

From a purely practical standpoint, I could understand her point. There really _wasn't_ anywhere for all of us to stay. Even before Homura had joined us, the apartment had been a bit cramped. With the prospect of _another_ addition was just going make things even worse.

But I couldn't help but wonder why exactly we couldn't just make Homura go back to wherever he had been living before he had forced his way into our lives by being so unfortunately flammable. The whole problem would be solved.

And then there was another part of me that resented my mother's not-so-subtle insinuation of just _who_ should leave. It made me wonder just what it would take for Rin to finally be accepted, or at the very least become something other than _tolerated_, by my mother.

I suppose that was one of the small advantages of growing up alone: you never have to worry about disappointing your family.

"That's fine." Homura said, nodding solemnly. "I know a place that Rin and I could live."

The only reaction from Saber was a slight tensing of her hands and a narrowing of her eyes. That was all the warning anyone normally got before they realized that they had annoyed her.

"It would not be proper for you to abscond with Rin unattended." She said simply, shifting her stance slightly to convey a subtle menace. It would have been even more easily apparent if there had been a sword at her hip, which I suspect was why it was so effective. Well, that and being a legendary figure of history who could crush just about anyone beneath her boots if she had the desire to do so. "We will search for an alternate residence, and you may return to your own home."

While I liked the sentiment, sometimes I think Saber's bluntness could use a bit of cushioning. Especially when, as loathe as I was to consider the notion, Homura's offer had merit. Provided it was suitably altered, of course.

It would be a cold day in hell when I let this interloper run off with Rin unattended. Especially when he was prepared to so easily abandon his own ideals in the face of danger.

"Maybe it would be best if we all checked out this place," I say diplomatically, and try my best to smile winningly. "After all, how long can a son live with his mother?"

Takami frowned in a way that seemed to convey that _some_ sons had extenuating circumstances that might make them an exception to that particular rule.

"Shirou?" Saber said uncertainly, frowning minutely in consternation as she regarded me. "Are you certain this is the best course of action?"

"It doesn't hurt to look," I reason, and I nod meaningfully at the young woman trailing behind me like a lost puppy and by extension Homura. "And a little privacy wouldn't hurt."

Rin seemed to brighten up significantly at this prospect.

"And we might be able to rent some extra space for a..." She deliberately trailed off, grinning eagerly.

Fate has a cruel sense of humour. Cruel, and crude.

I say this because, at that exact moment, Yukari poked her head out from behind Takami with a mischievous grin.

"Rin-sempai is gonna get a love-shack and-" She froze in the act of making whatever lewd suggestion she was about to make, her gaze fixed pointedly on... actually, I had no idea what her name was.

Awkward.

I would have to get into the habit of asking the names of the people I was saving.

Yukari was unaffected by my sudden revelation of my own ignorance, and pointed a finger of accusation at the young woman next to me,

"Who is this and why is she clinging to my onii-chan?" She demanded flatly.

"Ah," The pale woman responded, stirring out of her apparent stupor. "I am Akitsu."

"We found her in the park, and she looked like she needed help." I elaborated, and took note of her name. (I didn't take any pleasure from the way Homra shifted agitatedly. That would be petty.) "We'll be taking care of her until she gets better."

"Take care of me..." Akitsu repeated, a light blush appearing on her cheeks as she did so. I frowned slightly upon noticing it. Was she coming down with something? There was no way to know how long she had been outside in the cold.

Yukari scrutinized the 'scrap' closely, a deep disapproving frown on her face as she did so. I found the intensity of her gaze slightly unnerving, and the way it gravitated towards her chest more than a little disconcerting. I'd heard of the 'male gaze', but I'd never thought to find it on my own _little sister_.

Eventually, the verdict came in.

"No, I won't stand for this!" My little sister cried out indignantly. "Rin-nee, Saber-nee! We can't let this big-chested hag have her way! The pancake alliance _cannot_ lose in this war for onii-chan's love!"

Pancake alliance? What in the _world_ was she talking about?

"Pancake alliance?" Saber repeated slowly, unconsciously echoing my own question. "I don't, what does that... I don't understand what you're talking about."

"Who are you calling a pancake?" Rin demanded indignantly, blushing fiercely.

Homura blinked, and gave a small smirk of amusement.

Takami, for her part, was merely looking at Yukari with an expression of resignation.

Undeterred by the varying degrees of disapproval and incomprehension, my little sister bulled forward with her strange discourse.

"Besides, the taco-to-sausage ratio is all off! Rin-nee-chan, you have to find more men to make this work!"

I was beginning to wonder if I really _wanted _know what my little sister was talking about if the way Homura suddenly choked and Rin's blush intensified was anything to go by. The relation between tacos and sausages was a mystery I was content to leave unsolved. It sounded like it would be a terrible mix in any case.

"_Enough!_" Takami snapped, a light blush at last appearing on her own cheeks even as she she pushed Yukari back inside her apartment. "Shirou, why you and your... friends check out this new place, and I'll try to have most of your stuff packed up and ready to go."

"Ahh, _Rin-nee!"_ My little sister cried out, flailing wildly with her arms as she struggled to get one last message out. "_You have to put a stop the tyranny of the melons! Fight for the pride of all pancakes everywhere!"_

"Stop calling me a pancake!" Rin shouted.

I didn't want to think about what any of that could mean.

Instead, I just dragged Rin away even as she argued furiously with Yukari about pancakes and why she wasn't one.

*_Later, in North Shin-Tokyo!*_

The five of us stood in front of what looked like an old-fashioned house that at once tugged hard at my nostalgia and filled me with quiet dread.

On the one hand reminded me greatly of my old home: the Emiya home. Memories of quiet mornings spent with Sakura and big-sis-Taiga, my own morning regime of self-improvement and the many pleasant days I had spent with Kiritsugu before his bad lack finally caught up with him.

On the other hand it also reminded me of the circumstance that had come shortly before abandoning that place for good: the Holy Grail War. Days and nights spent in desperate, hopeless battle, preparations for desperate, hopeless battles or in recovery from those battles. This place would be a constant reminder of just what I was getting myself back into.

I looked over to the side, and saw a matching pair of grim expressions on both Rin and Saber, and guessed that they were thinking much the same as I was.

"Alright, let's go inside and introduce all of you to the landlady and see what can be done." Homura said brightly, who seemed strangely chipper about all of this.

The grey-haired Sekirei ushered us in through the front door, and I made a point of taking in our surroundings.

The house looked just as... classical on the inside as it was on the outside. If anything, my old house seemed to be more modern than this one. How curious...

I was soon forced to wrinkle my nose as a new scent wafted through, that strangely sweet smell that I was beginning to associate with Sekirei and... something else. It was mostly blood, but there were notes of something else. It was difficult to place, as it wasn't something that could be fully expressed through smell.

A moment later there was a new presence nearby.

"Oh, Kagari-san." A female voice greeted calmly, and I turn to face a slender woman with lilac hair and what looked like a traditional miko robe. "And I see you've brought guests."

"No need to for that, Miya-san." Homura answered in return, and gave a winning smile. "I've actually brought some people interested in renting some rooms."

I sniff minutely, carefully watching this new alien. She _seemed_ peaceable enough, to be sure. But it was difficult to shrug off that stink of blood. It was even thicker than the one I had smelled from Karasuba.

Just what was it that these women got up to in their free time when they weren't menacing travellers or greeting would-be tenants?

"Have you?" The woman, Miya apparently, said slowly, and turned to regard us.

There was something very _strange_ about all this. This creature definitely _smelled_ dangerous enough, but she wasn't _doing_ anything. What's more, I shouldn't feel so... threatened by someone wielding nothing more menacing than a _broom_.

She gave Rin a brief once-over before settling firmly on Saber.

"Ah?" Miya said, and her eyes opened visibly for a moment to look hard at my blonde lover. "And who is _this_ young woman?"

"Oh, that's Rin. She's my-" Homura began, only to be interrupted.

"Ara, I wasn't talking about _her_ Homura-kun." Miya corrected, tilting her head chidingly. "I was asking about the blonde swordswoman."

I felt an icy chill run up my spine at that. Was it possible that this Miya woman could sense Saber's true nature? But how _could_ she while Saber was still in this form? She was outwardly mundane without her sword or armour, so it shouldn't be possible for anyone to divine what she really was without some kind of sixth sense for that sort of thing. And how did she know that Saber was a swordswoman?

Saber, for her part, did nothing to betray any of her thoughts. Instead, she was as placid as a millpond as she sized up the petit woman in front of us, before a small smirk appeared on her mouth.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Miya-dono." The One-And-Future-King greeted politely, and inclined her head in a miniscule bow of respect. "Perhaps one day we can test our blades against one another?"

What? Just _what_ was going on here? The _landlady_ was a swordswoman too? And why was Saber being so respectful?

"Ara?" The landlady said, inclining her head to the side. "I don't believe I said I had a sword."

Saber's smile turned knowing.

"It's a poor swordsman that cannot spot another without it being obvious," She explained simply. "And you may call me Saber."

"Saber?" Miya repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. "What an unusual name."

Her eyes turned to mine, and her innocent smile failed for a moment as she seemed to become aware of the way I was watching her. And in that instant I was made uncomfortably aware of the calculating semi-glare that I'd been levelling at her as I contemplated just what all this might mean.

"Such an _interesting_ group of young people," Miya said warmly, her smile returning a moment later. "Yes, I think I have some rooms that you can rent."

"'Rooms'?" Rin repeated, latching on that word. "That will not be necessary. Saber, Shirou and I will be happy to share a room."

I happened to have glanced to the side as Rin said this, and took note of Homura's expression. It was one of victory. I didn't quite understand why he wore it, though. Curious.

"Ara?" Miya responded, her smile dampening somewhat. "But that would hardly be proper, considering your bond to Homura-san."

"Bond?" Rin repeated, perplexed. "We're not like that. I'm just his Ashikabi. Shirou and Saber are my lovers."

For a long time, nobody said anything. The look of victory that Homura had been wearing a moment ago turned hurt, while Miya's expression had turned to something resembling confusion.

"_Very_ interesting." She said slowly, opening her eyes a crack in order to look us over once more. Then she nodded towards Homura. "You will need an extra room for the other young woman, however. Homura-san can inform you of the rules of the house, I'm sure. But before that, let's get the paperwork settled..."


	6. How Not To Win Friends And Influence Ppl

**No One Left Behind: How Not To Win Friends And Influence People**

I stare hard at the paper in front of me, my eyes locked on one particular sentence.

The document was filled with references towards various leasing laws and regulations and what I suspect was a deliberate use of needlessly obfuscating language. Saber, surprisingly, had turned out to be invaluable in sussing out some of the more unreasonable stipulations.

One such stipulation was the one the one that I was currently dwelling on.

'_... credit (in any shape or form) from Mid Bio Informatics will not be accepted for the purposes of rent and use of utilities...'_

I looked over to my side and noticed the horrified look on Rin's face. I could easily imagine the source of her dismay. 'Rent' was not a word she was comfortable with. Most magi, even those who lived in the relative public areas of small villages far from the larger cities, had ways of dealing with land-taxes. It was amazing what one could accomplish with the liberal application of Mystic Eyes, threats of painful dismemberment or even, when all else failed, getting someone else to foot the bill.

Rin, her family having had a long and close relationship to the Church, had taken full advantage of the last option in order to maintain her hold over Fuyuki City. I don't think she'd ever had to pay rent in the entirety of her life. (Then again, towards the end I guess the Church decided it no longer felt like paying a mint to support a family that now only had a single member that may or may not survive.)

And now it looked like she would be getting a crash course in doing just that, except without any means to actually pay.

That didn't stop her from making a spirited effort to get out of it, however.

"Would you accept gold?" She asked hopefully. "I have lots of gold that I don't need."

"'Don't need'?" Homura repeated, giving his Ashikabi a sidelong glance. "Weren't you going to use that jewelry for emergencies?"

"Paying rent counts as an emergency!" Rin snapped, before smiling winningly at Miya. "Well?"

The landlady tilted her head to the side, and gave the magus a speculative look. Then, having reached some kind of consensus, she nodded.

"How did you acquire this gold?" She asked at last.

Rin's smile faltered, and she mumbled something incoherent.

"What was that?" Miya asked, her suspicions having been proven. "I couldn't quite hear that, Rin-san."

"I bought them with my MBI card." Rin said again, louder this time.

Miya nodded once again, smiling widely.

"Then no, I will not accept it. I want nothing to do with _that_ company."

"Is there any other form of payment you'd accept?" Saber asked, her voice full of authority. And _nobody_ could be authoritative like Saber. The only thing she needed to complete it was a crown, and possibly a throne. "Services rendered, perhaps?"

Miya considered this, then smiled.

"For a time, yes." The lilac-haired woman acquiesced. "I could always use help with the chores. But this would be a temporary situation only: I will eventually need rent to be paid in order to maintain Izumo House."

"Of course," Saber agreed. "Would a grace period of one month be appropriate?"

"That would be acceptable." The landlady said with a nod. "Is there anything else you would like to discuss?"

"Of course. The living arrangements you outlined will not be acceptable."

"I thought it might. However, I must consider the other people living here as well." Miya said, and gave a knowing smile. "I wouldn't want them to be... disturbed, by a group of young men and women in the middle of the night."

"Th, th, that's-!" Rin stuttered, blushing fiercely.

"Be that as it may," Saber said, no trace of embarrassment on her. I suppose it was possible that being in 'negotiation mode' allowed her to shrug off any sort of mild discomfort caused by insinuating that the three of us would be... _noisy_ late at night. "Perhaps we could come to an understanding of sorts. After all, it would be hugely inconvenient for us to have to rent a separate room for the purpose of... dalliances."

Even I made a small noise of embarrassment as Saber so casually negotiated for what amounted to the right to conjugal visits. From the sound that Homura was making behind us, he too was feeling more than a little discomforted. Akitsu was surprising nobody by remaining perfectly quiet, however. I found that more than a little strange...

I took a small peek to the side just to check up on her, and found that she too was sporting a light blush.

Well, I guess I should have expected that much. I suppose she was just too shy to voice her embarrassment.

Miya responded to this with a raised eyebrow and a tiny lessening of that knowing smile.

"There are _names_ for such establishments, you know." She said, chuckling quietly. "And are you certain that-"

"For the past few months we have been living with Shirou-san's mother." Saber interjected smoothly, her tone grave. "In separate rooms. Under her watchful eye. There are _limits_ to how far such things can go on, Miya-dono. Visiting such an establishment without Shirou's mother knowing would be worth it if it means that the three of us could... _reacquaint_ ourselves with each other once again."

Both Rin and I turn to stare at Saber's frank admission.

I'd always known that she tended towards blunt truth, but _this_ was a bit much. After all, how could someone who got embarrassed about being hungry so casually... and without-!

It boggled the mind!

"If it comes to that, I'm sure that Homura-kun would know a few locations of interest to you." Miya answered, not missing a beat.

"_Miya!"_ Homura said with a desperate, strangled gasp behind us. "Not in front of-" He gave a pointed look at Rin, but didn't say anything else. He didn't need to. The insinuation was obvious.

"Ah? Embarassed, Homura-kun? But surely Rin-chan knows of your occupation already, yes?"

My expression darkened upon being reminded of just what the grey-haired alien did for a living, and by extension being reminded of how he knew my mother. From the way Homura tensed up suddenly, I could tell that he was suddenly very uncomfortable with being put on the spot like this.

"I, er, well..."

"No?" Miya asked rhetorically, nodding minutely as if he had answered. "Then perhaps you should let others talk?"

"Excuse me, but what does Homura's occupation have to do this?" Saber asked, genuinely perplexed.

I was about to answer, as I'd realized that Miya did indeed have a point. If anyone could help the three of us with some sort of arrangement, it would be Homura. He probably knew all sorts of discreet places to have a romantic rendezvous. He probably had a motel-room or something like it reserved for him.

Which meant that if anyone could get us out of this horrifically embarrassing moment, it was Homura.

But Miya didn't give me a chance to say anything.

"Nothing." The landlady answered, looking back to Saber. "Though your argument does have merit. I suppose some leniency in your case could be in order. Provided that I am not made aware of your dalliances, I have no objection to the three of you sharing a room."

"That seems like a reasonable request." Saber agreed, looking to both Rin and I to see if we agreed. "I believe we are in agreement."

"But-" Homura began to protest.

"I have stated my terms, Homura-kun." Miya said with a smile. "So long as I am not aware, I have no objections."

"Oh." The alien said in defeat, then perked up slowly. "Ohh."

"Yes, I see you understand now." Miya said, still smiling even as she addressed us once again. "When can we expect you to move in?"

"Today, if you have no objections." Rin answered for all of us, even now grinning wildly. "We'd like to get moved in as soon as possible."

"Of course," The landlady nodded, and rose to her feet. "I look forward to your return."

*_A Few Hours Later, At An Undisclosed Random Street In Shin-Tokyo!*_

I had only moved out of or into a new home a handful of times, but it continuously amazed me how easy it was to simply pick up the few things that mattered, pack them away into a box and then move them away to a new room that would become one's home.

But I had to admit that the duffle bag filled with several changes of clothing and a few other necessary objects, (some books that would have been more than a little tricky to explain away should they have been discovered by my mother and a precious few notes I'd made in my research that I'd been able to grab before fleeing,) was a very small in comparison to the several boxes of things that Rin was currently making us all help her carry.

Saber had noted once, with some concern, that I had very little belongings. I suppose I had to agree that she was right, in the end. And maybe it said something about me that even now, months after I had fled from the tower, I had not yet bothered to accumulate more.

But on the other hand, it meant that I was ready to go long before Rin had gotten done packing her own possessions. I don't know _how_ she'd managed it: after all, she'd had even _less_ time than I had in order to get her things together, but here we were, each of us carrying a large box in our arms in addition to our own belongings. It didn't seem possible.

Luckily, we had help. Homura and Akitsu (luckily my mother had been willing to donate some of her own clothes to the worthy cause of keeping the young woman decently covered, and so she too had a bag of possessions to carry) were both carrying boxes of their own.

Rin had decreed loudly that she wouldn't be paying for a taxi to take our belongings to our new residence when there was more than enough of us to carry the load. I suspect it was a reflexive response to what she perceived to be a waste: it wasn't too long ago that she'd had to ration her funds.

And so it was that the five of us, each of us laden down with boxes and bags, made our way through Shin-Tokyo.

"What are we going to do now, uncle?" Someone said to my right. "We don't have the money to fix this, or to get a new cart!"

My ears perked up at this, and I craned my head around to investigate the source.

"I don't know," an elder, long-suffering voice answered. "What happened, anyway?"

"Hell if I know! One minute some weird cosplay girl with a scythe was complaining about bad service and then all of a sudden the whole place is ruined!"

"'Bad service'?" the second voice said slowly, a bit more agitated. "Were you sassing the customers again? I told you, Yuuki-chan, you can't call them fat!"

"No! I was just wondering if there was a con or something going on today that we could relocate to. Y'know, to get more customers! And then she yelled at me, asking what I was talking about, and then _boom!_ This happened!"

Curious, I surreptitiously made a quiet intonation of 'Structural Analysis' and examined the two halves, and soon made a curious discovery.

Apparently it was possible to convert what looked like trailer into a kitchen, and then apparently run a mobile restaurant in the middle of town. How ingenious.

What a remarkably simple, and yet wonderfully marvelous idea.

"A-_hah!_ So you _were_ sassing them!" The uncle accused, latching on to only a fraction of what was being said. "This is what happens when you get careless, Yuuki! Sooner or later a crazy person comes around that cuts our food-cart in half!"

"But Uncle-!"

"No buts! Have you _seen_ the damage done to my poor cart? We're out of business!"

Oh no.

That just would not do.

I put down my box, despite that annoyed grumbling protestations of Rin, and approached the two quarrelling people.

The first speaker, who looked to be a young teenaged girl just out of high school in a waitresses uniform, was obviously distressed at what might be a calamity that had been caused by her careless comment.

"But, maybe if we glued it back together-" She suggested desperately, frantically pointing at the perfectly cloven food cart.

"Glue? _Glue?_ There isn't enough glue in the _city_ to fix this, Yuuki! There are two pieces of a single cart! Two of them!_"_ Her (apparently) uncle retorted with a snort. "We're _ruined!_"

He was much older, wearing an old apron along with an immaculately clean chef's hat over his greying head. The best way to describe him was as an inveterate cynic. I could tell that much simply from seeing and hearing him that the frown he was wearing was quite likely a permanent feature on his craggy face.

"Excuse me." I interject as gently as I could, reluctant to butt in but wanting to help. "But I think that the damage could be fixed without much cost."

"Eh? Who're you? Are you that guy from the tax office?" The elder man asked, apparently making a lightning-quick assumption. "I _told_ you, I'll be able to pay by the end of the week!"

"Uhm, no, that's not what-"

"Oh gods, you aren't from that loan-shark, are you?" He went on, his face losing all color. "I swear, I don't have any money to pay him!"

"I'm not- wait, didn't you say that you were going to pay at the end of the week?"

"Err, no?" The elderly man took on a panicked look, his eyes darting quickly from side to side. "Listen, I was just joking before! Joking! I'll pay you by the end of the week! Honest!"

"I'm not-" I began, but then stopped myself. I couldn't allow myself to play this game. It would only encourage him. "-Listen, I just stopped by to say that the damage done to your cart isn't actually all that bad. Nobody sent me." I say instead, and am greatly gratified to see the relief flood into the elder man.

The man mopped at his forehead with a dishrag, smiling nervously.

"Nobody sent you... alright, that's great. I can deal with this." He suddenly seemed to realize the other part of what I'd said. "And what's this about the damage not being that bad? It's in _halves!_ How'm I going to fix that?"

"Well, I could fix it easily enough, given some time," I answer truthfully. And I _know_ it to be true. A discrete Analysis of the cart had told me that the cut was both clean and hadn't ruptured anything important. As the man's apparent niece had suggested, the only thing that needed to be done was to reattach the two pieces.

"You could, huh?" He grumbled, glowering at me suspiciously. "And I suppose you'd want to be paid too, huh?"

"What? No, of course no-"

"Of course he does!" Rin interrupted from behind me, and without seeming to cross the space between 'there' and 'right next to me' she simply _appeared_, pressing a hand against my mouth. "Nothing in this world is free, right?"

"Hmmph, evil kids, taking advantage of an old man's misfortune!"

"Hey, we're just here to help, old man!"

"Yeah? Well how about you just buy this wreck from me instead!"

"Deal!" Rin said victoriously, earning her a surprised stare from everyone present.

"Eh?" The old man said, scowling fiercely. "What do you mean, 'deal'?"

"I'll buy this thing from you." Rin stated, and began searching through one of her boxes.

"Ehh?" Both uncle and niece gasped at once. "Really?"

"Of course. Well, if you'll accept gold." My lover answered, still looking

"You're joking with me, right?" The old man said. "You're teasing an old man!"

"Nope." In that moment she returned with a velvet bag in her hands, and I just _knew_ what was inside: a whole lot of jewelry sans the jewels. It was hardly the standard form of payment, but provided the man wasn't a complete fool he would still be able to get a fair price for it. Quite possibly enough to get him out of whatever financial problems he was in. "Check it yourself."

The old man gave Rin a suspicious glare, but quickly did as he was bid and looked inside the bag. His eyes lit up almost immediately, and his scowl burst into a slow smile.

"Little miss, you have a deal!" He shouted, then took off his hat and shoved it down on my head. "You can have the stupid thing, and I hope it brings you luck! It certainly won't bring a profit, hehe!"

And with that, the old man and his still-shocked niece took off, the latter dragged away by the former.

"What the- did you just buy a ruined food-cart with your emergency gold?" Homura asked, confused. "How in the world does _this_ count as an emergency?"

"Because Shirou can fix this thing up!" Rin said, still grinning wildly. "And then he can make and sell food, and once everyone gets a bite we'll be rolling in the money!"

Oh. That made sense.

I adjusted the chef's hat on my head slightly, and wondered if it was strange that it felt so right to have it there. I'd never before had aspirations of becoming a cook

Sabre put down her own box, looking at the two perfect halves of the food cart critically for a moment before nodding her agreement.

"That is true," She said solemnly, never once removing her gaze from the foodcart. "But I wonder what it was that caused such thing..."

"Probably a Sekirei." Homura said with a small shrug. "Some of us have pretty short tempers-"

_Ding-ding!~ Ding-ding!~_

I recognized the sound as a message alert.

But what alarmed me the most was that Homura and Rin had gotten it at the same time.

Whatever Homura had been about to say was immediately forgotten as his face visibly fell from annoyance to outright repulsion.

"Oh no, he wouldn't-" He muttered, and then his lips contorted into an angry sneer. "No, he would."

Rin was staring hard at her cell-phone, her mouth scrunched up with intense concentration. Her thumbs worked fast as she... actually, I couldn't tell what she was doing.

"Gah, what the hell is this thing beeping for?" She sudden demanded angrily, and threw the offending appliance at me. "Fix it, Shirou!"

… And neither could she, apparently.

With a quiet sigh I unlocked her phone and dutifully the message she had just received.

"'There is a cute Sekirei in the Botanical Gardens,'" I read aloud for Saber and Rin's benefit, my voice hard. "'First come first serve. You might be the one to give it wings. Smiley-face.'"

I look up at Homura.

"What's this about?" I ask him. "I thought Sekirei were supposed to find their Ashikabi on their own?"

"They are," Homura acknowledged while angrily shoving his phone back into his pocket even as he set down his load next to the cart. "But there are some people who force a connection in order to gain the Sekirei's power. They're the kind of people I try to protect those unwinged from."

Before I could ask what he planned to do about those who _had_ gained their wings in such a manner, Rin spoke up.

"So you'll be taking off, then?" She asked, frowning slightly. "This is the sort of thing I'm not supposed to interfere with, right?"

Homura paused for a moment before reluctantly nodding in agreement.

"Yes, it is. I won't be gone too long." He turned to leave, but then froze and turned around slowly. "Actually, it might be a good idea if Saber and Shirou come with me."

I find myself raising an eyebrow at this, curious as to his reasoning. Certainly I'd _like_ to go, but I wouldn't have thought that he'd want me anywhere near him. Or Saber, though I suspected that I was the main motivator for this development. After all, I was 'endangering' everyone by allowing Akitsu to stay with us.

Maybe he just wanted some backup in case things became difficult?

"You two should see for yourselves just how dangerous Sekirei can be, and then you'll stop all this talk about joining in the Plan." The alien Sekirei explained, shooting down my theory.

Ah.

Still no faith. Well, I didn't know why I would have expected any more than that, I suppose.

"I'll go." I declare, and despite Homura's smug smirk I allowed myself a small smile. "I'd like to help out if I can, and it would be good to see how Sekirei fight."

Saber shot a look of indecision towards Rin, who gave a small shrug in response. I could see the dilemma on her face: she wanted to come with us/me and see for herself the true power of a Sekirei, but she was also loathe to leave her Master behind, almost defenseless.

Such a thing was almost wholly unthinkable in the War, and only the most desperate of stratagems would have called for it. Rin seemed to pick up on this after a moment, and spoke up.

"Go with them, Saber." She said, then smiled encouragingly. "I'll be fine here. I'll prepare some defenses while I'm waiting for you guys to come back."

That seemed to be enough for Saber, as she whipped around to face Homura with a solemn expression.

"Very well." She declared, and nodded to me. "Shirou, I will require my sword."

"Sword?" Homura said blankly, blinking in surprise. Then his expression changed to one of alarm. "You've been carrying a sword this whole time?"

I allow myself a quiet chuckle as I begin 'searching' through my duffle bag.

Trace On.

"Swords, actually." I remark calmly even as I begin pumping out od into a physical shape, creating reality from a dream. A perfect imitation.

Well, a perfect imitation of a mundane dream. After all, Saber was deadly enough without an legendary artifact of destruction.

It was a normal sword, but its weight and structure were close enough to that of Excalibur that it was a good substitution. The sheath was a simple simulacrum of Avalon, a hollow imitation with none of the magic that made it so incredibly valuable.

But I knew that she would appreciate the thought.

I pulled the blade and sheath out of my bag and tossed them to her, savoring the look of pure disbelief on Homura's face as I did so.

"Where did- I _saw_ you pack that, Shirou! You didn't put that in there!" He accused loudly.

"You obviously didn't look closely enough." I remark airily, and a moment later I had Kanshou and Bakuya in my hands as well. "I'm good at hiding weapons."

It wasn't a lie. Just because my armory of weapons didn't actually exist until I needed it to didn't mean that it wasn't there. It was expertly hidden inside my own mind.

I heard something shift behind me, and to my surprise I realized that Akitsu had been there the entire time.

"Akitsu?" I ask, somewhat ashamed that I had almost forgotten about her. "Did you want to come too?"

"Ah," The woman said, looking away from me shyly. "Yes."

I consider briefly whether I should make her wait with Rin, but eventually decided against it.

Just as Homura wanted me to see that I had no place in this Plan, I wanted him to see that she posed no danger to us. Perhaps it was rash of me, but I wanted to show him how wrong he was about her.

"Alright." I say. I took no pleasure from the way Homura shifted uncomfortably when he realized that I was letting her come along. None at all. "Then let's go."

*_Not Long Thereafter, At The Botanical Gardens!*_

I surveyed the damage done to the ruined van with a sense of detachment as well as curiosity.

Like the foodcart we had just come from, it had been sliced cleanly in two. _Unlike_ the earlier incident, however, the cut wasn't the only damage. Apparently the cut had hit something explosively important, as the scene around the van was littered with burning, smoking remnants and patches of fitfully burning fire.

And, littered here and there in places where only a trained eye would think to look for them, I noticed the still, charred remains of what could only be victims to the attack. There was no mistaking them.

I have experience with this sort of thing.

"Who would have the nerve to attack from the front?" Homura demanded, shaking his head. "Look at this! It's against the rules!"

Rules?

There were no rules in war.

"Let's hurry." I say calmly pointing with one of my weapons. "It looks like they went in there. If we're quick, we can catch whoever did this before they do any more damage."

"R, right!" Homura agreed, and the four of us pressed on into the thick press of plants that seemed to be giving a valiant effort of escaping their compound.

I sniffed idly at the air, trying to find some trace of our quarry, but quickly despaired. Whatever it was that was affecting the plantlife was saturating the area with enough prana to make it impossible to pinpoint any other.

But I could hear _something_ out there: a distant smash and scream of wind as well as what sounded like a small girl's frightened cries. I scowled. We would have to be fa-

"Why are you still wearing that hat?" Homura asked suddenly.

"What hat?" I ask, slightly confused and disoriented from having my concentration broken.

"That chef's hat! You've been wearing it ever since we left! Why haven't you taken it off yet?"

"Oh." I say, realizing that I was indeed still wearing the hat. "I forgot I was wearing it." I gave a light shrug and smile. "I guess I just like the way it feels."

Homura stared hard at me, then sighed loudly.

"Whatever. Let's just-"

"Hah!" A new voice shouted, alerting us all to a new presence. "I _thought_ I heard voices!"

Without warning a trio of newcomers arrived, two Sekirei and what I assumed was their Ashikabi.

The two Sekirei seemed to be wearing some kind of S&M gear style of clothing, a strange choice to wear into battle. There was a certain resemblance between them that I concluded could only be fraternal.

Their Ashikabi, on the other hand, seemed to be sensibly dressed in a jacket and jeans.

"Oho, more lowlifes out for a-" He frowned, then took a sniff at the air. "Huh, that's odd. There are no Ashikabi here, and yet here are-"

"Oh, shut up!" One of the two Sekirei snapped. "You're just lucky you found someone in this maze!"

"Hikari!" The other chided, gesturing towards us. "Not in front of the enemy!"

I breathe deep through my nose, then frown. Close as I was to these two Sekirei, the overpowering scent of the thick growth around us couldn't overpower their own. I smelled sharp ozone along with the sickly sweet stink of their power. I could recognize it from my encounters before on various hunting trips: lightning. A volatile, unpredictable weapon. A weapon that didn't cut through steel.

"They didn't attack the van." I state matter-of-factly, but keep my blades at the ready.

"Damn right we didn't!" The first sister exclaimed, waving a fist at us. "And we wouldn't be here either if it wasn't for this guy!"

'This guy' raised his hands in a placating gesture, chuckling lightly.

"Now now, Hikari, I just wanted to make sure that things didn't get any worse than they already were. After all, if there are a lot of vultures circling around there are bound to be fights." Their Ashikabi explained.

"Shirou." Saber whispered at my side. "We do not have time for this."

"You're right." I agree, and then take a step forward. "I'll hold them here while you take care of the others." I say evenly, and instantly Homura freezes. He turns to me, his eyes wide.

"You can't be serious." He states, searching my face for any sign that I was lying. "You can't fight Sekirei, Shirou! It just can't be done!"

I fight back the sigh, and instead I nod to my side where even now Akitsu was standing quietly.

"I won't be alone," I tell him calmly, even as I pull Kanshou and Bakuya from the bundle of towels I'd hidden them in. "And I am hardly harmless."

Homura stared hard at me, his mouth opening and closing a few times in protest, before he finally shook his head violently and gave me a look of grudging respect.

"Just," He hesitated for a moment, before pressing on. "Just don't do anything stupid, yeah?"

"I'll try not to." I tighten my grip on the blades in my hands, then turn to face to two women and their Ashikabi. "Go on and save the girl. We'll be right here."

Saber took all of this in, her expression never once moving from one of intense focus and determination. I recognized in it her battle-face: the one she had worn when facing down the Servants of the last war, as well as the few 'extra-curricular' trips we'd made while associated with the Clock Tower. She was in the state of heightened awareness, that slow-fast haze of adrenalin and readiness.

"Be safe, Shirou." The swordswoman ordered, then nodded to Homura. "We must find the other group and stop them quickly.

"And what makes you think you can 'hold us'?" The Ashikabi asked, clearly amused. "Do you really think you can take two against three?"

No hesitation.

Surprise and speed were the greatest of weapons, and I was loathe to sacrifice them right at the onset of battle just so I could answer his taunt. I also didn't want to give them any time to move into a position that blocked Saber and Homura's progress towards the _other_ battle that seemed to be going on. I had to gain their undivided attention.

I bolted forward, holding each of my blades in a striking position.

I didn't bother with the two Sekirei. They were secondary targets.

Instead I focused on their Ashikabi, which seemed to shock everyone if they way the two Sekirei cried out in alarm and pushed him out of my path before sending out arcs of lightning to force me away.

I danced away, hissing quietly as a few stray bolts bit into me and filled my body with pain even as I accepted it as necessary. They now knew that I was not an opponent to be taken lightly.

There was a sudden thunderclap, and a moment later the world was filled with white.

"You will not harm Shirou-sama." Akitsu stated coolly, and with a flick of her hand the makeshift barrier sprouted spikes of ice and slashed outwards.

"Don't kill if possible, and allow them to retreat if they want," I advise the Sekirei at my side hurriedly as I brought Bakuya and Kanshou back up.

And with that I threw myself back into the deadly gauntlet of electricity and ice. Left, right, right, _twist_ and then double back before I was vaporized by torrent of lightning, the dance went on. Right, backwards and then _forward!_ Bakuya cut at head-height and met nothing, its would-be victim darting away at the last moment and flinging a blast of thunder that yet again forced me away.

Time warped and dilated in that wild fray, neither side quite managing to gain a real advantage. While Akitsu was several orders more powerful than our two opponents, she was limited to mostly defending herself against the onslaught of deadly candescence. But even so she was more of a threat than I was posing. Her own projectiles had already found a few marks, cutting into them even as they avoided the initial threat but failed to escape the secondary as razor-sharp blades of ice slashed outwards.

I, on the other hand, was mostly a distraction. Well, as much of a distraction as a whirlwind-quick storm of blades could be. I was a threat, yes, but I was also easily warded away: all it took was a liberal amount of electricity.

I took this in stride, however. Even if they managed to defend against me for now, how long would it be until their tired? They were almost constantly using their powers, after all.

As if the same thought had crossed their minds, one of them spoke up.

"We can't keep this up, Seo," One of the sisters (I think her name was Hibiki) hissed out between clenched teeth.

More ice slashed out towards them, forcing them to move away once more and allowing me to draw closer.

"Yeah, this is getting insane. Hikari, c'mere." The Ashikabi reached out to one of Sekirei and yanked her towards him while wrapping his arms around her.

"Eh?" The Sekirei in question shouted as she was pulled close and then kissed fully on the lips.

Bright wings of chirruping lightning erupted from behind her, causing me to freeze momentarily before retreating back to Akitsu's side. Whatever was happening, it couldn't be good.

Without wasting a moment the Ashikabi repeated the process with the other, and a second pair of brilliant wings came into existence.

Beside me, Akitsu frowned. And then, in one smooth motion, she brought her hands in front of her.

Almost instantly a wall of ice formed between us and our opponents.

"Go for the girl," The Ashikabi advised from behind his Sekirei. "She seems to be the real power-house here."

They didn't answer him.

Instead, they spoke in perfect unison.

"We are pledged to the thunderclap." The intoned slowly, and for a moment their wings flared with almost painfully intense light. It bent and fractured as it passed through Akitsu's wall of ice, creating a myriad of tiny spectra and rainbows. "No disaster will befall our Ashikabi."

Blinding light surged towards us, and met the wall of ice. Akitsu made a quiet noise of concentration, and its thickness greatly increased even as the outer layers were blasted away.

/Too fast./

I noticed the sudden arcing, some inner sense warning me of what would happen. I saw the split happen, saw that sudden parting.

/Too fast./

No human could outrun lightning: I doubt a Sekirei was much different. I knew what would happen next if I did nothing.

The lance of lightning angled off impossibly from the glacial shield, bouncing off and then around the barrier where it would hit-

/Too fast./

I couldn't stop it from happening. There was only one thing I could do.

I dug Kanshou into the ground and slashed Bakuya out and upwards, filling my body with od to feul my speed.

/Too fast!/

"_**Shirou-sama!**_" I hear a sudden wail to my side.

I felt my arm crunch as the bone snapped under the force that I was forcing it to handle and my shoulder pop its joint.

I moved too fast, too inhumanly. I reached too far, I pushed my body beyond its boundaries.

But for not even a second, I was faster than lightning. As it passed the barrier Akitsu had created it arced away from her, finding a different, easier point to strike.

I felt my blood boil inside my veins as thousands of volts of static electricity burned through my arms and chest before ending in the ground. Wisps of steam waft upwards as I stand, uncomprehending, as I felt my heart pound out a random staccato rhythm

"Idiot." Someone said, and it took me a moment to realize that I wasn't dead.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that it was a much quicker reaction time since the last time I'd almost been killed.

"Hikari!" Someone else scolded, sounding concerned. "I think we might have killed him!"

"No we didn't." The first answered coolly. "That was suicide by stupidity. It was like he was _trying_ to get hit!"

I force my lungs to breath out, and ignore the twinge of pain as they protest at being put back to work so soon after being cooked. With a slight rasp, I interject myself into their conversation as I begin moving once more.

"Actually, I was." I inform them, and note with some concern that my shirt appeared to have a few scorches on it where my body had gotten hot enough to burn it. Even more distressing, I could feel my skin flaking off of me where it had been seared through and was even now being regenerated by the power of Avalon. "It just surprised me for a moment."

"Holy crap!" Both the sisters exclaimed at once, apparently shocked that I was still alive and moving. I could sympathize.

How scared had I been when facing Berserker and his Godhand?

"No way he's human!" The first shrieked as I freed Kanshou from the ground. "Did you _see_ that?"

"Well he doesn't have an Ashikabi," A third voice, their Ashikabi, interjected. "I can sense that much."

"Wait," The second, Hibiki said quickly while pointing at me. "He's wearing a hat. Do you think...?"

"Scraps!" Hikari said with a quiet gasp, and took a cautious step back. "Two of them! In one place? What the hell is going on here?"

Scraps? They thought I was a scrap?

Well...

What a fortuitous turn of events.

If the way Homura had reacted to Akitsu was anything to go by, then scraps were apparently greatly feared by the vast majority of Sekirei.

If they thought I was a scrap, then they wouldn't think too much about any supposed 'superhuman' feats.

And that made things _much_ easier.

"Hmmph." I snort derisively, then look over to Akitsu. She was studying me with such intensity that for a moment I was taken aback. I quickly recovered, however. "It took them long enough to figure out."

I hated lying like that, but I wanted to end this without bloodshed if at all possible.

Akitsu's eyes widened at my seemingly errant comment even as a blush formed on her cheeks. Wow, she was _really_ shy if all it took to make her blush was to _look_ at her.

"Scrap twins," Their Ashikabi said thoughtfully, before he raised his hands in surrender. "Alright, we give up. You win. Please don't hurt my girls any more."

Well. That was easy.

If only the Holy Grail War had offered such bloodless battles.

*_Not Long After!*_

"Shirou."

Saber's voice came as a relief. I was confident that she could more than hold her own against any comers, especially if these two Sekirei were anything to go by.

I turned away from our 'prisoners' in order to get a look at the swordswoman, and was immensely gratified to see a girl sleepy soundly in her arms. It seemed like this whole affair was a resounding success.

The solemn expression she was wearing seemed at odds with the serene scene she seemed to encompass, and it wasn't long before I simply had to ask.

"What's wrong?"

Saber shifted uncomfortably, then looked away from me.

"It, it seems as if I too have become an Ashikabi." She admitted slowly.

"Ugh, you could have waited for me, Saber," I hear Homura grumble from further away, and a moment later he emerged dragging a pair of unconscious Sekirei. "And helped me with these two."

I looked down, and frowned thoughtfully when I saw the two there.

One was wearing an elaborate dress of some kind and had dirty-blond hair.

The other was a ridiculously over-endowed woman wearing a pink shrine-maiden outfit and combat gloves.

Well, this made things just a bit more difficult.

"Ugh." I grunt, then look around me at the gathering. "I think we've taken too many prisoners."


	7. The Rules Of Engagement

**No One Left Behind: Rules Of Engagement**

"By the way," Homura said cautiously, shooting Saber a furtive glance as he finished binding the two unconscious Sekirei's hands behind their backs. It probably wouldn't work too well, but there wasn't any sense in not taking_any_ precautions for their escape. "How did you manage to subdue number forty-three?"

The five of us were still in the small clearing in which Akitsu and I had fought the two lightning Sekirei and their strange Ashikabi. I'd long since let them go: it looked like we would have our hands full with the two Saber and Homura had knocked out and the small girl who was still resting comfortably in Saber's arms for all the world like her own child. Maybe it was their shared blonde hair and skin that conjured that particular connection in me, or maybe even the protective way Saber held her close with one hand while she carried the sword I had traced for her in the other. It was at once strangely appealing and menacing all at once.

Thinking of children and Saber (specifically, the act that begat them) brought to mind the earlier discussions between the swordswoman and our new landlady, as well as a quiet satisfaction that I wouldn't be sleeping alone again tonight. (It felt strange, after living most of my life taking care of myself, to realize that I had grown accustomed to sleeping between two of the most important women in my life.)Which also brought to mind that it had been several months since Rin had last gotten a hint of 'action'.

There are no words to describe how happy I was that Rin had been forced to leave the vast majority of her 'exotic toys' back in England. I have no doubt that they would provide some hapless Enforcer with several minutes of puzzlement before he realized just what they were for.

Akitsu was worryingly quiet, her focus seeming to be solely on me. She'd been staring intently at me ever since I'd let the assumption that I was more than human slip. There was a strange fascination in her gaze that unsettled me a bit, but I suppose that if she also believed the ruse then she might consider me to be kind of solidarity. A unity of failures and outcasts. I felt somewhat ashamed that I would eventually have to disabuse her of this notion.

From where I was standing I could see Saber tense up a bit as she wondered how she was going to lie her way out of this.

"She had no skill," came Saber's blunt explanation. Half-truth was the method of deception today, apparently. I had no doubt that compared to Saber, her statement was completely true. There was a handful of living creatures that could harm a Heroic Spirit, and I somehow doubted that they came from the labs of MBI.

"'No skill'?" Homura asked, raising an eyebrow. "She could cut down _trees_ in a single blow!"

"Strength alone does not make a formidable opponent," Saber admonished with a disapproving frown. "And such strength would only have mattered had I allowed her to strike me. I did not."

"'Didn't allow it'?" he repeated incredulously. "What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?"

Saber's frown deepened before she looked over the alien's shoulder at me. I could read her expression, and knew the silent plea for help in it.

"Is this really the time?" I ask him, gesturing to the unconscious women. "Shouldn't we instead be focusing on what we're going to do with them?"

"They're unconscious," Homura said blankly, turning his focus to me. "What are we supposed to do with them?"

"That's what we need to figure out," I said. "We can't just leave them here, after all."

"Why not?" he asked, clearly confused on this point.

"Because they know things." I told him patiently, as if speaking to a child. I didn't really mean to, but it seemed entirely too obvious to me to not know. This wasn't exactly the most advanced of stratagems: keep your enemies as much in the dark as humanly possible. (Or inhumanly, as the case might be.) "They know your abilities, they know that Saber can fight against Sekirei and win, and most importantly of all they know that Saber is now directly involved in the Sekirei plan."

I knew that the insinuation that she would hide her status as an Ashikabi solely for the sake of a combat advantage would rankle Saber's honourable sensibilities, but a prolonged period of being Rin's apprentice had driven home the idea that 'honour' and 'sensibility' were quite often mutually exclusive. For the time being, it would be most prudent to hide this turn of events.

"But you let those other people go," Homura shot back at me. "Won't they be able to tell other people that Saber is an Ashikabi?"

I shuffled my feet in discomfort, a bit unwilling to admit that I had let the two Sekirei and their Ashikabi go for the sole reason of perpetuating a lie.

"They know something that I want them to know," I admitted reluctantly, looking away from Homura. "Allowing them to leave and spread that information would be of great help to us."

He wouldn't just leave it. I knew he wouldn't. It was just too suspicious, too obvious. Too glaring a hypocrisy to not call me out on it. And even if he _did_ choose not to drag the answer out of me, Saber would. She would corner me with logic and worry and the many other subtle things she did that made it impossible for me to lie to her face.

"What did you want them to know?" Homura asked, distrust in his voice.

I gave a small shrug, and idly inspect my swords for a moment before deciding that there really wasn't any way out of this.

"They think I'm a scrap." I tell him plainly, and while I wasn't looking I could tell by his sharp intake of breath that the very insinuation took him aback.

"They think _what?_" He demanded loudly, immediately stopping his task of binding the two women. "What did you _do_, Shirou?"

"I too would like to know why you wish potential enemies to believe you are not human." Saber echoed, though much more calmly. A narrowing of her eyes belied this calm, however: she wanted to know what I'd done just as much as Homura did.

I was going to be scolded for this. I just knew it. And then Saber would tell Rin about it, and I would get that disappointed and uncomprehending look.

And I would once again feel strange for not fighting down the impulse to save others by putting myself in danger.

"I... got hit by lightning." I admit with a small amount of hesitance.

Saber's eyes narrowed, no doubt taking in the state of my clothing in accordance with what I'd just told her. It would be obvious to her that, even with Avalon's power, the damage I had received from the attack was devastating.

There it was. That Look of worry that sapped away all resolve and made me feel terrible for trying to save someone.

Homura, on the other hand, was staring at me.

"You got hit by lightning," He said flatly, giving me a doubtful look. "And you're still standing? You expect me to believe that?"

I was thankful for a moment for his interruption, as it provided me a respite from the disappointment Saber was radiating.

It was short-lived, however. Akitsu chose that exact moment to make herself known.

"Shirou-sama diverted their Norito to himself." Akitsu said quietly, shooting a resentful look at Homura. "He saved me."

The way Saber shook her head with quiet distress was the finishing blow against my satisfaction in our victory.

The way Homura's mouth instantly fell at Akitsu's assertion might have, under different circumstances, filled me with a kind of vindictive satisfaction were it not for the pitying look Saber was giving me.

Rin was going to have my head. I just _knew_ it.

"This 'Norito'," Saber said slowly, never once looking away from me. "Is it an attack of some kind?"

"It's a Sekirei's most powerful attack!" Homura shouted in explanation. "Not even Sekirei should be able to take one of them!"

"There were two of them, actually," I corrected him before I could stop myself, knowing that I was only making things worse. "They both used theirs together."

"_How the hell are you still alive?_" Homura shouted, staring at me in wide-eyed alarm.

'_I shouldn't be.'_ The answer was right there, plain as day. Just as it had been years ago, after those many times I had suffered grievous wounds at the hands of impossibly powerful entities of legend. I suppose that some answers are more difficult to accept than others.

I shouldn't be standing there with a burning pain in my arms and shoulder where I had simultaneously broken and wrenched the bone from its socket, with tender skin that had rapidly regrown from under scorched remnants that were still flaking off me.

But saying that wouldn't just be stupid, as it would garner even more suspicion towards me. It would also get me another one of those terrible Looks. And I really didn't want another one of them.

"I guess I'm just lucky like that." I say instead, and force myself to shrug sheepishly. "Maybe my swords just don't conduct electricity very well?"

"That's bullshit!" Homura spat out, staring at me with an intensity that I was beginning to find a bit worrying. "It's a _Norito_! They can't be stopped by just bad metal! You should be a smoking heap!"

Thankfully, Saber seemed to be able to rein in her disappointment in me long enough to divert the other man's attention once more back the important issue: the prisoners.

"This a topic that can be discussed later," Saber interjected calmly as she pointed at the unconscious women. "We have more pressing matters to attend to."

Homura looked like he wanted to protest, but soon forced himself to regain some kind of composure.

"You're right," he said reluctantly, before looking at me. "But I'll want to know what you did later, Shirou. No human should be able to survive something like that."

Indeed. It was amazing what having a legendary artefact of unspeakable power crafted by otherworldy beings grafted into one's body could do for you.

"We'll see," I tell him vaguely, then look back down at the two young women. "So, anybody have any suggestions?"

"Keeping one with us for a time may be prudent," Saber said slowly, calculating the risks against the rewards to be gained. "We would be able to gain information on her Master, perhaps even use her as bait or as a hostage if need be."

Homura seemed taken aback at the notion.

"Keep one with us?" He sputtered, aghast. "No, I absolutely won't allow it! That's just too much of a risk! What if she breaks free and attacks Rin?"

"Did I not defeat my opponent single-handedly, Homura-san?" Saber inquired earnestly, frowning slightly. "Do you still believe that neither Shirou nor I could prevent her from attacking someone? Do you believe that, between the three of us, a single enemy would be enough to overwhelm us?"

"That's not the point!" Homura disagreed hotly. "What if we weren't there? What if we were asleep? We can't take the risk!"

"The alternative is to simply dispose of both of them right now." The swordswoman countered coolly. "Is such an outcome preferable to you? You, who protects the unwinged? Does your mercy extend only to those who do not oppose you? Or maybe only the weak and helpless?"

The Sekirei opened his mouth to protest, but soon closed it again with an angry grimace.

I could almost sympathize with the alien.

His ideal was similar to my own, and I could remember only too well the growing pains I had gone through when it was put to the test. 'The wish to save someone is also the wish for someone to be in danger.' And that was only the beginning of it. I was willing to allow that the crux of Homura's ideal, to help his weaker kin, was being put to the test.

It would not be a pleasant experience: analyzing the flaws in one's own ideals never was.

Then again, this was also the same person that suggested I leave Akitsu behind. Perhaps a little introspection would be good for him.

"Fine," He finally relented begrudgingly. "We can take one of them."

That was something of a relief. It would be good to get some more intelligence on one of the other players in this 'Sekirei Plan'. Wars could not be fought without reliable sources of information, and I would prefer that we had as much as possible before we began in earnest.

I would prefer to avoid another Caster incident.

"Well, which one should it be, then?" I ask, looking between the two.

Saber frowned grimly, then pointed her blade at the blonde woman.

"I will not suffer that one to be around my charge." She stated authoritatively, obviously referring to the child still sleeping peacefully in her arms. "Her behaviour towards a frightened child is unpardonable."

I didn't want to think of what the woman had done to anger Saber in such a way, but it would have to be severe. Saber was similar to me in some respects: she might not wish to save every enemy she came across, but there was a capacity for mercy in her.

"Homura?" I asked, giving him a look of query. "Is this acceptable?"

"Ah," he grunted in agreement, still grimacing at the whole situation. "Number 88, Musubi. She should be easy enough for us to handle: a melee fighter from what I saw."

Ah. That would either make things easier or more difficult. I was confident in my abilities, of course, but it wouldn't be prudent to discount the possibility that the young woman would turn out to be another Kuzuki Souichiro: unassuming and harmless right up until the moment she wasn't.

"She's worthless as a fighter, though." Homura followed up as if reading my thoughts. "I think this was her first."

Oh.

Well, I guess not everyone had the luxury of knowing their way around a battle.

"It looks like she's the one," I announce with a quiet sigh. "Let's get this over with."

"Indeed," Saber said grimly. "Shirou, I will take care of this. You need not stay-"

"No, I can't turn away from this." I refute stubbornly, before smiling weakly. "Besides, someone is going to have to clean your sword eventually."

*_Elsewhere!*_

Yukari froze suddenly and tilted her head slightly as if listening to something far away. A look of mild bemusement passed across her face as she did so, as if she wasn't quite aware why she was doing this.

"Hey, Yukari-chan, is something up?" One of her friends asked.

"A, ah, no!" The young woman said with a embarrassed laugh before returning to whatever it was crazy girls did together. "I just thought that I was missing something important for a second. So tell me again what happened to your uncle's cart..."

*_Back with Shirou!*_

"Wait, what are you two talking about?" Homura said, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "Why would Saber need to have her sword cleaned?"

"Because one of them has to be disposed of," Saber explained, and approached the fallen Sekirei in question.

"One of them has to- _Wait, stop!_"

The alien quickly placed himself between the swordswoman and the prone Sekirei while spreading his arms wide to stop her from approaching any further.

"_What are you doing?_" Homura shouted, aghast at what he was seeing.

"Disposing of an enemy," Saber answered plainly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I thought we had already discussed this."

"What did you think we meant?" I ask, agreeing with Saber. What else were we supposed to do? We weren't going to keep her, and we couldn't just let her go. That would have been reckless.

"You can't just _kill_ people!" The alien told her hotly. "What is _wrong_ with you two? Just let me take care of this, and _don't stab anyone_!"

Saber seemed to take offense at the implication that she secretly yearned for the opportunity to murder helpless young women after beating them into submission. I could hardly blame her: what exactly did he think we were going to do?

But even Akitsu seemed mildly disturbed by the almost casual way we had explained our logic and intent. Which wasn't to say that I thought her bloodthirsty: I had merely grown accustomed to her unflappable countenance. The way she was carefully watching me, a tiny frown on her lips, made me wonder if I was providing a bad example for her.

Homura glowered briefly at the two of us before kneeling at the fallen Sekirei's side and shifting her onto her belly. I watched with curiosity as he pulled down her dress's collar a bit, exposing what a crest to us all. He placed his thumb against it, and began to recite an aria somewhat similar to what I had heard before.

"_These are the flames of my pledge,"_ He sang softly, closing his eyes. "_Burn the karma of my Ashikabi."_

I frowned momentarily at that, pondering the meaning of the words. Was it supposed to mean anything?

My musings were cut short as light flared upwards around Homura's thumb, the stink of prana becoming so powerful that I was actually forced to cover my nose in a futile attempt to stop the pervasive smell from overwhelming me.

And then, just as abruptly as it appeared, it vanished.

Homura stood up and dusted himself up, shooting Saber and I a derisive glower.

"_That's_ how you take care of Sekirei," He informed us coolly, then knelt to pick up the other prone woman. "MBI will be by soon to pick her up: we would normally have to stay around to make sure she was properly collected, but I want to make sure that everything is still alright with Rin. I'll carry Musubi: you two just make sure that her Ashikabi isn't lurking around in ambush."

He spoke as if he were scolding us. And, given the circumstances, he was right to. We hadn't asked him about the proper procedures for this. We hadn't thought to. I'd become so used to disregarding him that it hadn't even occurred to me. What would we have done if he hadn't been there to stop us?

Maybe this war wasn't exactly what it was we thought it to be, after all. Merely disabling an enemy would have been far from an ideal outcome for the Holy Grail War, after all. Likewise with some of the missions we'd tagged along for at the behest of the Mages Association. A helpless opponent was still dangerous: possibly even more so, if ignored. They would remember well who had put them in that position, and would likely take the earliest opportunity to pay the favour back with interest.

Mercy, in most cases, was to be tempered heavily by prudence.

Not so here, it seemed. It was as if MBI was reluctant to set loose the full potential of their creations upon the city.

Which, I suppose, made a kind of sense. I could only imagine what kind of terror would befall the city if there was someone with the power of the twins I had fought earlier and the personality of, say, Gilgamesh. The thought did not bear thinking.

In chastised silence, Saber and I followed him with Akitsu in tow.

*_Back At Izumo House!*_

"Ahh, Musubi is _hungry_!" Our prisoner complained mournfully as she watched us eat.

It was later, and we had thankfully managed to make it back to Izumo House with little incident. While the landlady had initially been against the notion of keeping a prisoner in her home, Saber had calmly explained that _this_ particular woman had been party to the terrorization of the adorable girl that was clutching tightly to the swordswoman.

It had only taken one look at the pouting girl for the elder Sekirei's expression to soften, and acquiesce to allowing us to keep the woman bound for a short time before we would have to let her go.

Which seemed reasonable enough. It seemed a bit sadistic to me, but I suppose I could deal with her before she made it back to her master. I was aware that Miya had meant for us to allow the woman to return unharmed, but there were some things that could not be allowed to happen.

And one of those was the endangerment of Rin, Saber or Kusano. And Homura, I suppose.

After acquiescing, there had been a loud grumbling that I could easily recognize. More distressing, however, was the fact that it had seemed to come from Saber.

After much blushing and protestations of innocence (and just a bit of teasing), it had been discovered that the sound had come from Kusano.

Which led smoothly to us now eating together while our prisoner watched on longingly.

"Ah, is there food? Why didn't you tell me, Mi-" A new voice called out from above before pausing as the newcomer took in the apparent newcomers. "Why do we have someone tied up in the living room?"

"Why are you listening to Musubi?" The young woman moaned piteously.

"Homura and his friends brought her with them when they moved in," Miya explained calmly, as if there wasn't someone tied up in her living room.

"Friends? What fr-" She seemed to take notice of us at last, and blushed slightly in embarrassment. "Oh, heya. Didn't see you there."

I give a small smile and nod of recognition, gesturing at the table.

"Hello," I greet the newcomer, looking up from the dinner table. "I'm sorry we didn't think to tell you, but this one was just so hungry."

'This one' was none other than number 108: Kusano. She was currently sitting between Saber and myself, and was thoroughly enjoying it. She'd been chattering away about 'swords' and the fight between Saber and 'the meany Sekirei' the whole time with many cries of 'Saber-nee-chan'.

"Heh, no worries." The other woman said smiling brightly, and joined us at the table. "I'm Uzume, by the way."

"I'm Shirou," I answer, nodding briefly towards her, before pointing to my side. "This is Akitsu."

The woman in question nodded minutely at the introduction, but made no other gesture. I hadn't really been expecting any either, however. I made to introduce the two

"And this is-"

"I'm Kuu-chan! Kusano announced happily from my side, pointing up towards the blonde woman. "And this is Saber-nee-chan! She has a sword!"

"Indeed." Saber agrees with a smile towards the child before turning back to the newcomer. "A pleasure to meet you, Uzume-san."

"And I'm Tohsaka Rin." The magus introduced herself, studying Uzume intensely. I can see the question forming on her lips, and what it would lead to. '_Do you have an Ashikabi?'_

We could deal with that later. No need to make anybody less comfortable yet. Not to mention that it would let slip that we knew what she was.

"Oh, and please don't feed the prisoner." I interject, almost as if it were an afterthought. "We want her to be hungry when we start interrogating her."

Rin shoots me an annoyed glare, but didn't otherwise react.

"Mou!" Musubi protested, wiggling around so she could look at us. "That's so mean!"

"Yeah, that's pretty cold bro." Uzume agreed, looking back towards the bound Sekirei. "What'd she do?"

"She was mean to Kuu-chan!" The answer came from the selfsame girl, who was even now climbing up Saber so she could point a finger at Musubi over Saber's shoulder. "And she hurt Takami-nee too!"

My ears prick up at that, wondering if perhaps it was simply a coincidence that Kusano would know someone named Takami.

No. I wasn't that lucky.

"Musubi didn't want to," The young women explained piteously, ceasing her wriggling. "But Mikogami-san told her to!"

"Mikogami?" I repeat, looking away from my meal to address this new development. "Is that your Ashikabi?"

"Ahh!" The young woman suddenly shouted with a fresh bout of wiggles. "Musubi wasn't supposed to let anyone know who her Ashikabi is! Mikogami-san will be so angry with Musubi-chan!"

"Hold on, if you didn't want to do it, then why did you?" Rin interjected, sounding confused on this issue.

"Because Mikogami-san told me too!" The brunette explained.

"Is that all?" Saber said derisively, turning around so that she too could have her say. "Are you a person or a tool to follow orders in such a way? Did you truly not wish to obey your Master?"

"No!" Musubi protested feebly. "Musubi would never- not after- she wouldn't!"

Something was wrong about this. By the uncomfortable looks everyone was trading, I wasn't the only one who thought so either.

"Why wouldn't you?" I ask, somewhat more gently.

Musubi was quiet, unwilling to meet my eyes.

"Musubi wouldn't," The woman said quietly. "Because it happened to her too."

Silence.

The admission sapped all of my previous hostility towards her out of me. The temperature of the room seemed to drop as everyone took in the admission. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. Nobody seemed certain how to react.

"Kuu-chan, would you like to take a bath with me?" Saber asked suddenly, shattering the quiet that had settled.

I was thankful to Saber for finding a reason to get Kusano away from this. I didn't want the girl to have to hear this sort of thing so soon after her own ordeal.

"U, unn!" The girl affirmed quietly, sensing the gravity of the situation.

Miya rose from her place, and walked towards the hallway. She beckoned for the two follow.

"I will show you where the bathroom is. Follow me, please." the landlady said.

"Ehe, I think I'll go out for some dinner tonight," Uzume said quickly, and made her way to the entrance.

That left only Rin, Homura, Akitsu and myself to continue this impromptu interrogation.

And I couldn't help but feel like I was about to kick a puppy for doing so.

"You were winged against your will?" I try to hide my surprise, but I must have failed somewhat.

Homura shifted uncomfortably. That made sense, I suppose. Nobody liked to be reminded of their failures.

"Yes..." Musubi said, almost regretfully. "Musubi didn't want to at first, but once it was done... well, it's not so bad! Mikogami-san can be nice!"

The last state came out with a desperate kind of certainty. It was soon deflated, however, when Musubi looked down shamefacedly and kept talking.

"When he isn't calling Musubi weak." She went on dejectedly. "Or worthless. Or-"

I didn't need to hear anything else.

"Why don't you just leave him?" Rin asked forcefully, unable to stop the distaste in what she was hearing from coming through in her voice.

"Leave my Ashikabi...?" Musubi repeated with uncertainty, as if the very concept was an alien one to her.

"Sekirei can't leave their Ashikabi, Rin." Homura explained gently, radiating pity. "Once we're winged, we're stuck with whoever winged us for better or worse."

Oh.

That went a long way towards explaining why Homura wanted to protect unwinged Sekirei. If there was a chance that they could end up like Musubi, then it was no wonder why he was determined that Sekirei should find their 'destined ones'.

Rin looked like she wanted to say something at that, and even opened her mouth to do so. But words just weren't enough to explain just how _wrong_ this situation was.

I remain silent, watching the sadly quiet girl carefully.

I could fix this. I knew I could.

I had the tools.

I remained thoughtfully quiet as Homura and Rin continue asking questions, considering how I was going to go about this.

_*Later!*_

It was never easy to slip away from Rin and Saber while they were sleeping, but as I was an early riser in the midst of heavy sleepers I had become adept at doing just that. It took a bit of careful negotiation of their tangled limbs with feather-light movements, but practice made perfect. And I had had years of practice.

As I slipped out into the darkened hallway of Izumo House, I was forcibly reminded once more of all those late-night patrols and gatherings between Rin, Saber and I. This was a reminder that I would rather have done without, though, as it inevitably brought to mind Caster: the woman who's blade it was that I would be using.

I hated Caster.

There were few people I could say that about, but that woman was one of them. She had tried to steal someone precious away from me, had knowingly and willingly created vast bounded fields to drain the life from helpless civilians to fuel her own power, had manipulated and tricked others for her own selfish desires. She ran counter to almost everything I believed in and held dear.

Yes, I hated Caster.

But that did not change the fact that she had provided me with the tool to help others.

Rule Breaker.

A Noble Phantasm granted to the woman Medea by the gods in an age where magic had been relatively common. It was a time when a weapon that could unmake any and all magic without consequence was a weapon to be _feared_, no matter how strange or unwieldy it was.

I held the blade in my mind, going through each stage of its creation save the last as if it were a mantra. There could be no margin for error in this, no chance of the weapon being imperfect. The consequences for such a thing did not bear considering.

In my hands, it would be used to help others.

I ease down the stairs, careful to make sure to step only where I was certain my footfalls would not cause the wood to creak beneath them. Structural Analysis was useful for that much, at least.

When I was back in the living room, I quietly made my way to Musubi and shook her gently awake.

When that didn't work, I shook her strongly. Apparently Rin and Saber weren't the only heavy sleepers in this house.

"Bwuh…?" The sleepy Sekirei mumbled intelligently as she woke, blinking her eyes in the darkness. "Who's there?"

I shift myself slightly so that my face is illuminated in the pale moonlight, and smile encouragingly at her.

She focussed her eyes on me, her lips moving subtly as she struggled to recall my name.

"You're... Shirou?" She asked hesitantly, uncertain if she was getting it right.

"Yes, that's me," I agreed, then I remembered that she was still bound. "Here, give me a second..."

The blade appeared in my hand in a second, but I was confident that even if the woman noted its sudden appearance she would simply assume that she hadn't noticed it due to the gloom. I cut her bindings without a word, freeing her from them.

"There we go," I say when the last rope is cut. "How are you feeling, Musubi-chan?"

"... I'm fine," she answered uncertainly as she began to rub life back into her wrists. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I think that we made a mistake in treating you like an enemy, Musubi-chan," I said earnestly, and allowed my smile to widen. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry for the way we treated you... and what's happened to you."

She watched me for a moment, almost distrustfully, before she smiled weakly.

"... You're a nice person, Shirou-san," Musubi said at last. "Musubi wishes you had found her first."

My own smile falters at that before I forced it back into place. This was, after all, exactly why I was here: to provide a choice that had been stolen from her.

"I'm sorry I couldn't," I say honestly. "But I think I can help you now, Musubi."

"Eh?" the Sekirei said, surprised. "What do you mean?"

I thought for a moment on what words I should say, on how I should make the act of stabbing a blunt dagger into her sound appealing. It was easier than I thought it would be.

"I can give you a chance to find your destined one," I told her. "I can free you from Mikogami."

My words go unanswered. Musubi simply stared at me, unmoving.

For a long time I was uncertain that she fully understood my words. Homura had mentioned before that Sekirei couldn't leave their Ashikabi: was the concept of being free of them completely inconceivable to some of them?

But then a second concern welled up in me: even if she _could_ conceive of it, would she even _want_ such a thing now that she was winged? Musubi had expressed a devotion towards Mikogami in spite of her unwilling winging and his harsh treatment towards her.

What exactly happened when a Sekirei was winged?

I was stirred out of my musings when the object of my scrutiny spoke. I would have to bring this up with Rin and Homura later.

"A, are you sure you can do it?" Musubi asked quietly, watching me intently. "Can you really?"

"I'm reasonably certain that I can, yes," I say with some certainty.

After all, if the thing could work on Heroic Spirits, why wouldn't work on her?

"And I would be able to find my destined one?" The question came out with a desperate hunger, her eyes seeming to water up.

"Yes, of course you would," I assured her, though now I was a bit wary. She was acting strangely, and that rarely boded well.

Musubi closed her eyes, breathed deep, and then launched herself at me in a tackle-hug that had us both rolling on the ground.

"Thank you Shirou-san!" she said joyously as she clutched me in an almost bone-crushingly tight embrace. "Thankyouthankyouthank-"

"Musubi, you have to be quiet or you'll wake up everyone else!" I whisper desperately, hoping that she hadn't already done so.

"Oh," the Sekirei whispered back at me sheepishly before releasing me. "Sorry. Musubi was just so happy."

"Yes, I could tell," I answered wryly.

My aching shoulder could attest to that much. It seemed that it was doomed to take a great deal of abuse today.

"So, what do we have to do?" the Sekirei answered excitedly. "Do I have to drink a magic potion, or pray at a special temple, or fight a monster?"

Despite the gravity of the situation I felt a small amount of mirth at her eager suggestions.

"No, you don't have to do anything," I informed her easily, before I checked myself. "Well, almost nothing. You have to promise me that you _never_ tell anyone about this. Can you do that for me, Musubi?"

"Of course, Shirou-san!" the brunette said without a hint of hesitation. "Musubi will never, ever ever _ever_ tell anyone who helped her find her destined one!"

Somehow I felt as if that promise would amount to very little when confronted by someone who knew what they were doing. It made me wish for a moment that I had included Rin in my plan: she would have been able to hypnotize Musubi into forgetting anything she might see tonight.

But Rin wouldn't have allowed me to do this. It was too much of a risk for too little gain. Or any gain, really, beyond the satisfaction that the world was a tiny bit better.

"That will have to do, I suppose," I said with a quiet sigh, then rise to my feet. "Let's take this outside, okay? There'll less of a chance of waking up the others."

She follows me outside to the garden, the chill of night biting even deeper as fall begin to set in.

"Sit down on the grass, Musubi." I order her calmly, once again going through the several stages of projection. _"Trace on_."

My magic circuits began to burn with life, my aria shifting my consciousness into a mode that was better suited to the act of recreating a divine artefact.

Judging the concept of creation…

Hypothesizing the basic structure...

"Is this fine, Shirou?" Musubi asked from her place in the centre of the yard.

"Yes, that's fine," I replied. Duplicating the materials...

Imitating the skill of its creation...

"Are you sure that I don't have to do anything?" She asked, sounding uncertain.

"Yes, Musubi," Sympathizing with the experience of its growth... "Please be quiet for a moment."

"Okay, Shirou-san!"

I didn't bother to answer. I suspected it would only further encourage her.

Reproducing the accumulated years...

Excelling every manufacturing process...

I felt my od take shape, turning a perfect dream of a weapon into deadly reality. It faded into existence in my hands, its darkly iridescent blade glittering ominously in the moonlight.

It still sent shivers down my spine to see it.

Musubi seemed to have had a similar reaction, if the way her eyes widened was anything to go by.

"What is that?" She asked breathlessly.

I smile comfortingly over at her even as I approached, my fingers wrapping themselves around the hilt tightly.

"This is what will free you from Mikogami." I inform her calmly.

"B, but where did it come from?" She asked, sounding bewildered. "One second it wasn't there, and then _poof!_ There it was!"

"Think of it as a special talent that I have," I said instead of a real explanation. "It doesn't really matter right now anyways, though."

She looked at the unearthly dagger for a moment more, seeming more uncertain for every moment. Then she gave me a fearful look.

"You aren't going to stab Musubi with that, are you?" she asked me, and it was all I could do to stop myself from gaping at her accurate guess.

"Err, no," I lied with a slight stumble. "I'm not going to hurt you, Musubi." not much and not without good reason, anyways. "Listen, do you trust me?" I press on, wanting to get this done with as soon as possible before she could lose her nerve.

"... I guess I do," Musubi admitted nervously, then shrugged. "You've been nice to me so far, and you could have just stabbed me with that when I was sleeping."

"Good," I say, trying my best to sound thoroughly trustworthy and not at all like I was about to do just that. "Could you close your eyes for a moment?"

Musubi gives me one more uncertain look before she reluctantly does as I ask.

For a moment I wonder if there was maybe another way to go about this, but then I disregarded the notion. I knew for a fact that there wasn't: Rule Breaker didn't work that way.

And so I steeled myself, and brought Rule Breaker up and then down.

Musubi grimaced and opened her eyes as the unearthly weapon was jabbed into her, but otherwise remained perfectly still. Which was good, I suppose. It meant that nothing bad was happening.

The dagger drew heavily upon my magic circuits, severing an intangible link between two people. Unmaking a bond that was never supposed to have been, freeing her from painful bondage.

At least, that was what I believed. Rin would have hit me for doing something so reckless for so little a reason. After all, the girl had already admitted that her Ashikabi "wasn't so bad". What _point_ was there in freeing her?

Well, besides getting her away from what sounded like an abusive and unappreciative master.

"Ggh," She suddenly grunted and doubled over in pain. I pulled Rule Breaker away hastily and drew closer, worried at this new development.

A moment later I regretted doing so, as the young woman gave out an agonized shriek as a pair of luminous wings burst from her back. They flared brightly for a moment, moving as if trying to beat at the air. And, sure enough, I felt myself thrown away as if being struck by the hand of a god. I was lifted off the ground and launched backwards through the air only to land in a painful roll. Stunned, I could watch as the events I had set in motion unfolded before me.

The wings pulsed with energy for a moment, illuminating garden as if the sun was rising from within Musubi. And then they fell away from her, drooping and then withering to the ground, like a plant long deprived of water. It was completely different from the way Homura's wings had vanished: his had simply winked out of existence after reaching a climax of power.

Her forehead surged with prana for a moment, the stink of it becoming so powerful that I wanted to gag at the sweetness. It concentrated at her forehead, creating a focal point condensed with so much prana that it seemed to warp the space around it even as it physically manifested as an eerie blue mist/light. Dark shapes moved and writhed within that distortion, and for a moment I think I can recognize them.

The moment ended, however, when the distortion seethed angrily and then it burst outwards with a sound like shattering glass.

Musubi collapsed on the ground, crying. I was immediately on my feet once more, rushing to her side. I picked her up from the ground and search for any trace of a wound, already suspecting that I wouldn't find one.

Something had gone wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong.

"It's gone, it's gone, I can't feel it," She sobbed. "I'm hollow."

/Right./

Looking at her, I could begin to understand why.

I had severed Musubi's bond with the man that had forced himself on her.

Musubi no longer had an Ashikabi.

But she still had her crest and her wings.

Musubi was like Akitsu.

Musubi was a scrap.

/Right./

My eyes registered a minute movement in her frame, something about it troubling me. I disregarded it as I tried to provide what little comfort I could.

The girl recoiled away from me suddenly, her eyes full of terrible sadness.

"You took it from me!" The shriek took me aback even as my regret was freshly renewed.

"This wasn't supposed to happen!" I protested, trying to reason with her.

/Right…/

Again, I felt an intense unease, a kind of premonition... but I shrugged it off.

"It doesn't matter anymore," she said quietly, pathetically. It twisted the dagger in my belly even harder. She sank back down to the ground like a puppet that had lost its strings. "I have nothing..."

I froze as I sensed a new scent intermingled with the honey-sweetness of magic: hot, like the sands of a desert at midday. It was like the burning and murderous heat of a pitiless sun beating down on a wasteland below.

But most of all, it was _powerful._

The crying woman whirled around to face me, eyes narrowed in sudden fury.

"_You took it away from us!_" she roared.

/Right-_behind!_/

I leaned to the left, easily dodging away from the wild blow I saw her spring her entire body into as I reached out to comfort her. I felt only a moment of victory before I saw only a blur of motion where she had been just moments before. Alarmed, I tried to turn to face her.

/Below./

With impossible speed she was behind me just as I turned, bringing me face to face with her. She spun around and latched onto my throat in one smooth motion, dragging me off my feet and whirling me around her before slamming me onto the ground with a thunderous crash.

The air was driven out of me in a moment of blinding agony even as my ribs broke under the force of the blow. My head swam with pain and confusion at the swift turn of events, my thoughts jumbled and disorganized.

There was little I could do except lay there and hope that I would be allowed to recover a bit before I was subjected to a new attack. But I knew that such things rarely happened.

/Below./

I felt myself lifted and thrown violently into the air, the sensation of rising, reaching the apex of my rise and then _fall_ filling me with a quiet dread. By that time, however, I had begun to regain control of my thoughts and body: as I began my descent I became fully aware of the gravity of the situation.

Musubi was waiting for me, glaring hatefully at me. She crouched down and made a powerful upwards leap at me. I brought my arms up to defend against what would surely be a devastating attack even as I hastily began Reinforcing myself as quickly as I could.

/Below!/

It wasn't nearly enough.

Musubi's hands both came upwards and struck me like the fist of an angry titan: her open hands spread the force of her blow across the entirety of my chest and sent me rocketing away while at the same time making me feel like the whole of my upper body had been reduced to so much meaty sludge. I could only struggle with breathing as I came back down to the ground with cataclysmic force, carving a shallow trail through the grass before being stopped by a bush that was subsequently demolished by my impact.

I was still coughing for air, trying not to notice that each fresh bout brought with it a thin spray of blood, when Musubi straddled my chest and pulled one arm backwards while grabbing me with the other.

"_You took it from us! You took it from us!"_

Each time she said it she hit me with a blow that felt like it came from a hammer. I struggled feebly to protect myself, to bring my hands up to stop the rain of blows, but these proved to be futile measures.

"Violence is not permitted at Izumo House," a cold voice declared, causing the enraged Sekirei to pause in her vicious assault. A quiet hiss of metal, full of deadly promise, cut through the air like a blade.

My hands reach out towards Musubi desperately, my mind not able to process that the attack had ceased. My clumsy fumblings caused the scrap to look back down at me, the rage back on her face.

"I think it is about time you left now, Musubi-san."

The Sekirei looked for a moment like she was prepared to risk impalement if it meant that she got to rearrange my face for a bit longer, but eventually she let me go and got off of me.

Relieved, I allowed my arms to fall to my side. I was far too grateful that I was no longer being beaten to an inch of my life to do anything more than be grateful, in fact.

Someone drifted into my blurred vision, filling the starry night sky that I had been staring out into with lilac hair and cold eyes.

"You appear to still be alive, Shirou-san," that same cold voice informed me. "How very fortunate: this way you can tell me what happened when you wake, and I won't have to ask your lovers."

I heard a rustle of metal, and then something hit me on my temple.

Darkness rushed in and took me, saving me from the pain of consciousness.

* * *

**AN:** Alright, I've resisted my urge to do this until now simply because... well, mostly because until the last chapter I'd regarded this as something of a lark: something to amuse and little else.

But, since this is now going to be treated as its own spinoff, that has to change. (I've also polished up my style a bit. Mostly just to compensate for that terrible fight scene last chapter.) So, I will address a few issues that I foresee someone getting a few question marks hovering over their heads about. (For those people in question: don't worry, I'm not psychic. I'm not reading your minds. Really.) So, let's get to it.

"_Syroc, what is with your strange fixation on scraps?" _

I like the idea of the shunned and feared becoming the focus. Avenger is my (anti-)hero. But I kid. (Lies!)

In Shirou's case, I wanted there to be a way for him really shine. If he maintains his ruse, he can safely duke it out with Sekirei with a minimum of fuss. Well, until MBI find out about it and bad stuff starts happening.

As for Musubi... well, she just happened to get skewered on my many-faceted crystal spire of reason whilst falling out of the sky. Unlucky, but such things happen. I will now list the reasons why.

Facet #1: _This is Nasu-verse_.

(Or rather a bastard child of Nasu-verse. But FSN has such depth to it that the Sekirei setting not only disappears into it but also _drowns_.)

Happy endings do _not_ grow on trees. At least not on trees that you haven't carefully cultivated and nurtured from the seed. Allowing Shirou to give Musubi a friendly stab with an ancient artifact of immeasurable power on a whim/compulsion/whatever and solve everything would ring hollow. Besides that, I also have logic on my side: when Caster stabs Rin, does she (Rin) lose her Command Spells? No. She simply lost her contract with Archer. So why would Musubi stop being winged just because her bond to Mikogami was severed? And if she's winged without an Ashikabi... well, that makes her a scrap.

But, while we're talking about Rule Breaker...

Facet #2: _Bad shit happens_

A bit of a rehash on the last topic, I know, but I needed to establish something about Shirou's many game-breakers: _bad shit happens when you don't think things through._ These are priceless artefacts of untold power wielded by _legends_. Using them on a whim (even such a benevolent one) is simply not done. Also, I want to push back the use of deus ex machina whenever I can. Sure, this might count as one, but at least it isn't in the typical way.

Likewise did I want to establish that there are no easy ways out for a Sekirei in a difficult situation with their Ashikabi.

And that's not foreboding _at all._

_Next!_

Facet #3: _Musubi is boring_

Now, before anyone dares to put a word in my mouth, (do it and I will _smite_ you, foolish mortal!) I like Gabriel's characterizations and what he's done with them. I would not be writing this story if I did not. That aside, Musubi fills me with nothing more than a huge amount of 'shrug'. I agree that she is distorted, and that there is some genuinely strange stuff going on with her, but this does not stop me from mentally asking "Yes, and I care because...?" before I focus on other, more interesting characters. There is no emotional investment in her beyond the occasional giggle, and until her distortion actually plays a real role it's not very compelling. For me, at least.

So I asked myself: how much more interested in her would I be if the one thing she treasured above all else _was ripped away from her in one brief moment_? The answer made me smile, because I can use that.

(I _always_ approve of throwing a character into a wood-chipper so long as it is done for a good reason.)

Facet #4: _Character Management_

I've said it before on the forums, but I have no idea how Gabriel manages to keep such a large menagerie of characters without taking a few of them out behind the woodshed. It's all well and good in a manga to have so many characters, (_within reason, _mind you!) but once the number count reaches 5-6 I begin to gaze longingly at my machete. The characterization is already pretty slim as it is, adding more into the mix on a permanent basis would only make things more difficult. Much easier to just push then into the outskirts of the story until I need her than have her hanging around Shirou all the damned time.

Originally, Musubi wasn't going to be in the story _at all_, but then… well, see the below.

Facet #5: _I have plans_

One of the things I dislike about what I've read of Sekirei is a lack of a real unifying theme, goal or conflict. The _setting_ is the main problem that Minato faces at every turn: all the characters that provide conflict emerge solely from that. Beyond that, there's not a whole lot going on. Sure, Minaka is a prick. But we don't know what his motivations are, or his ultimate goal. And while this might make him a scary villain under the right circumstances, he hasn't done nearly enough outright evil to become such.

Maybe that's changed in the newest chapters. I wouldn't know: I got tired of the boobs and pantyshots. Especially the boobs. Just about every female in it is named 'balloon breasts' to me now.

But I digress.

Musubi, now robbed of her central focus in life, has become a part of that plan. Don't worry: she's not evil: no random acts of violence against people, no omnicidal tendencies. She's just got some _serious_ beef with Shirou.

Facet #6: _Scraps are scary_

Except we never really get a reason _why_ this is so, save that they're very powerful.

Which seems kind of silly to me. Miya's powerful, Karasuba's powerful. And yet people willingly hang out with both of them. (For a varying value of 'willingly'.) I figured that I might as well _make_ a reason for them to be feared: they tend to not react well to bad things happening.

And I think we can all agree that Musubi would consider having her love taken from her _a very bad thing_.

Sorry to waste time explaining this, but I felt that I might as well build a strong foundation of reason for me to hide behind. Now, moving on to other questions…

"_Wait, Musubi was kind of __okay__ with being forcibly winged? WTF Syroc?"_

Ok, yeah. I get it. Not cool. Even I think that's skirting uncomfortably close to rape-y territory, and that's what I was going for.

So let me just get this out there: the idea of forcibly bonding someone emotionally is abhorrent to me. Likewise is rape and slavery, of which there are also tones in the act of forcefully winging someone. (Even normal winging strikes me as pretty horrifying, to be perfectly honest.) I am in no way saying that any of these things are cool or good.

But that doesn't mean they cannot appear in the story. They're themes that, in my opinion, are intrinsically bound to the Sekirei. I'll explain why I think so in the next chapter!

The only thing I can say that might be construed as a defence is that she was only cool with it _in retrospect_. Make of that what you will until I explain it.

Not to worry, though: Mikogami will get his due. And, since this is Nasu-verse(ish), you can rest assured that it will be nasty.

"_Syroc, Musubi would totally not win in a fight against Shirou! __His body is made out of blades!__"_

That's not a question, btw. But that's beside the point.

Shirou would, in a fair fight, beat unmercifcul ass in a fight against Musubi. I agree on this point. But one of the prerequisites of doing that is that sort of thing is that he has to be able to think rationally for a few moments at a time. That is, not suffering from a concussion or beaten into a pulp. The fight between Musubi and Shirou lasted a few minutes at the max, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that Shirou was surprised by her sudden attack and never managed to regain the initiative.

Also, Shirou can't win _all_ the time. That just wouldn't be interesting.

"_Syroc, Shirou seems to be a secondary character here! WTF is wrong with you?"_

A valid concern. (_Nothing_ is wrong with me, damn you! I am the great and powerful _Syroc!_)

Shirou, in this story, actually kind-sorta _is_ a secondary character. He's narrating the story, sure, but he's not quite the focus of the story. Why, you ask? Because he's not, technically, involved with Sekirei Plan. He's a spectator.

Which isn't to say that he'll stay that way. Expect Shirou to find an avenue of his own focus, which will naturally lead to him becoming an honest-to-goodness protagonist.

"_Syroc, why do you hate Homura?"_

I like Homura.

_Shirou_ doesn't like Homura.

Not yet, anyways. Let's recap briefly: Homura tried to kiss his lover, then got them involved in the Sekirei Plan, and then happened to say _exactly_ the wrong thing to Shirou. All while pretty much insisting that Shirou should just not get involved in the SP. This is not how one makes friends.

Homura, for his part, is stuck dealing with the fact that his Ashikabi, (_his destined one!)_ wanted nothing to do with him at first. Also, she has two other objects of her affection. Now, this might not be a problem, as we can see in canon. But Rin doesn't treat Homura with _any_ affection: he's just some random guy who got her involved in something she didn't want to get involved in.

Anyways, that's about all the questions I could think about. If you have any more, I might deign to answer them! (Read: please ask me questions. If it's good enough, it might just make me rethink something.)

Lastly, alethiophile gets all of the cookies for going through this chapter and pimp-slapping the worst mistakes out of it. _All_ of the cookies.

And possibly a pie.

Thank you and good night, gentle folk!


	8. Strange Heritage

**No One Left Behind: Strange Heritage**

I woke up in darkness, wondering why my body felt as if I had been thrown in front of a herd of stampeding elephants.

And then it all came back with terrible clarity, and with it a sinking feeling in my stomach.

I hadn't just failed to help Musubi... I'd made things even _worse_. And then it looked like she'd gone a bit crazy and proceeded to give me a thrashing the likes of which I hadn't received since the war. And I couldn't say that it wasn't wholly undeserved.

I couldn't even begin to imagine what becoming a scrap entailed, but I had only to remember the helpless state that I had found Akitsu wallowing in to know that it wasn't a fate that I would wish on anyone. And now I was prepared to believe that some of the fear that Homura held for the scraps was warranted.

And now she was out there, alone. With only her despair and fury. With frightening strength and willingness to use it. With the slight madness that had made her think she was two people.

I lurch forward, dread pervading past my won guilt and remorse, and immediately I feel even more regret for having done so. The pain I had felt from simply laying down suddenly bloomed into a vibrant garden of agony that started from my back and made its way all around my body. To say that I felt bruised did not do the feeling justice: it felt as if every bone in my body had suddenly been filled with hot iron. And while the sensation wasn't entirely a foreign one to me (all those years of recreating my magical circuits each night were at last coming to use, it seemed,) it was however the first time that it had pervaded through the entirety of my body.

"Shirou-sama," a soft voice to my side said, sounding entirely too relieved that I was alive and in agony.

It took me only a moment to focus past the pain, and managed to put a name to the voice.

"Akitsu," I answered, and turned my head to look at the woman. "How long was I out for? What time is it?"

She was sitting at my side with a look of concentration on her face, as if she was wholly consumed by the act of watching me. But more than that, she looked _tired_. There was a slight darkness around her eyes, and the stare she leveled at me seemed hollow and distracted as opposed to her usual intense focus.

I didn't want to think of what she was doing at my side, awake in the middle of the night, but my mind rebelled against me. Already it was asking itself just why this young woman would be so concerned with my welfare. It connected what I had heard Musubi say with the behavior Akitsu had displayed.

And then it presented me with its results: Akitsu was projecting her desire for an Ashikabi onto me. Now that I had seen a part of what being a Scrap entailed, and remembering her despair and despondency the night I had found her, I wasn't certain that I wished to disabuse her of the notion.

I was an Ashikabi in all but name, it seemed. Which, if I was honest with myself, was perfectly alright with me. The best way for me to keep Rin and Saber safe in this was if nobody suspected that I was more than I seemed to be. The name of Emiya Shirou wouldn't appear on the Ashikabi roster, even if Akitsu and I could act as a bonded pair.

As distasteful as the comparison was, Akitsu and I could act much like Lancer had. Except I wouldn't be Kotomine. Or Evil. Or stab anyone in the chest. Well, not again anyways, especially when I remember just how disastrously last night had turned out to be.

"Ah," the Sekirei muttered, considering the question. "I don't know."

I nodded, having suspected that might have been her answer.

"No matter," I grunt in acknowledgement, and try to straighten myself up. I soon double over in pain, however, gasping at the pain that coursed through me.

I feel cold hands on my back, and almost immediately a comforting coolness surge through the skin and into my muscles. It sent a shiver through me, but that lasted only a moment before my body acclimatized itself and the pain lessened. It was like putting ice across the whole of my body, and for just a moment I could forget that I was in agony.

However, this also brought to my attention the unfortunate fact that I was also shirtless.

And that would also have exposed the grisly horror-show that lurked beneath my clothing: the many, _many_ scars that I had acquired from the Grail War as well as my later misadventures told a worrying tale about me. It was one of the reasons that I had initially been leery of living with my mother: every day brought with it the chance that some strange sequence of events would somehow transpire that would end with me shirtless, and then my mother would casually ask Rin how many times she had tried to force me through a meat-grinder. And then other, more personal questions would be asked.

Like why it looked like I had been skewered through the heart.

Or why my stomach had a long ragged scar across it.

Or why it looked like my shoulder had been gnawed on by a shark.

Or a hundred other inconvenient questions that I simply couldn't answer without lying through my teeth. (Suffice to say that I had put my life on the line more than a few times during my stay at the Clock Tower, and doing so had left more than a few marks on me.)

Because I was a terrible liar. I have little doubt that I would have buckled under my mother's scrutiny. She was a scientist, after all: she wouldn't accept an easy answer if it didn't seem to fit. And there wasn't an explanation that would conveniently explain away all my injuries _without_ first explain the nature of thaumaturgy.

All this, however, was a secondary concern. What was occupying most of my attention at the moment was that _someone had undressed me_.

I pull the coverlet up to cover my chest, ignoring the protests of my aching limbs, and tried not to think about. Especially not about who might have done such a thing: the way Akitsu was blushing at touching my exposed flesh was a bit odd.

"Ara, good evening Shirou-kun," I recognized the voice as that of Miya Asama, worryingly cheerful compared to the coldly assertive tone I remember from before. I knew from experience that when powerful creatures went from upset to cheerful, it was time for everyone present to become very, very worried. And I only had to take a quick sniff to know that Miya could _destroy_ me even if I was at my best: in my current state, I'd barely be able to make any kind of resistance should she decide to deal with me in a permanent manner. "This is quite surprising."

"A- ah, Asama-san," I gasp in surprise upon realizing that Akitsu and I weren't alone. It takes a moment for her words to register, and then I frown in confusion. "What's so surprising?"

On the far side of the room, sitting alone in the gloom of night with her katana held close, Miya Asama had been watching us the entire time.

"I hadn't expected you to wake up so early," she clarified, watching me carefully.

"Early?" I repeat, incredulous at the notion. "It's night!"

"Well, yes. But that wasn't what I referring to," the woman agreed. "What I meant was that I hadn't expected you to recover after only two days. You had a great many broken bones, Shirou-kun. You should not be able to move, much less be awake."

I should also have a splitting headache, no doubt from being beaten into unconsciousness. But that was a small inconvenience in comparison to the slowly dawning horror of what Miya had just revealed: she had witnessed my unnatural healing. It was bad enough that Homura had his suspicions about me: he, at least, could be persuaded that keeping quiet about it would keep Rin safe should he manage to discover more.

That is, if he ever remembered anything about that incident other than the fact that Saber and I had almost murdered someone in cold blood. That hadn't been one of my finest hours.

My speedy recovery was nothing if not miraculous, and I don't think Miya would be unduly distracted even if I did have some helpless young woman that I could menace at my disposal if the ever-present stink of blood was anything to go by. I don't think there was anything I could do to distract her from this.

Rin was going to have my hide for this. Well, the _clocktower_ would have my hide for this, if the landlady couldn't be somehow persuaded to keep her newfound knowledge to herself. Rin would just beat me senseless until they took over for her and finished the job.

The secret of thaumaturgy was something that was supposed to be kept on pain of death. Quite often someone else's, in fact. But I somehow that I could defeat, let alone kill, this alien creature that reeked of blood.

Which didn't bode well for me, either way.

"Oh," I say, my mouth a perfect 'o' of horror.

"Yes. Oh," Miya agreed, still smiling. It didn't seem quite as friendly anymore. "Perhaps you could explain that to me later, after you finish telling me how and why you turned Musubi-chan into a Scrap?"

I felt the cool hands on my back tense as Miya said the word, and I didn't need to look at her to know that Akitsu was greatly troubled by what she had heard. Which wouldn't have surprised me.

I lower my gaze in shame, and sigh deeply. There would be no escaping this, it seemed.

"I didn't mean to do that to her," I explained, and the excuse sounds weak and worthless even to me. What does intent account for, in the end? All the good will in the world wouldn't change something from having already happened. "I thought that I could free her from her Ashikabi, and then maybe help her find someone more suited to her."

Someone who wouldn't belittle her, for starters.

Miya studied me carefully as I answered, no doubt looking for a lie.

"And what made you think you could do so, Emiya-san?" she asked, watching me for any sign of deceit. "Why did you think that you would be able to help her?"

Crap. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this.

Omission was fine: I wasn't _actually_ lying. I just wasn't correcting them.

Insinuating was fine as well: that was just misleading.

But outright lying? That was a bit of a tall order for me.

"I..." I wrack my brain for something, _anything_ that I could say to somehow prevent this from getting any worse than it already was. I didn't want to have to explain to Rin why I hadn't been able to think of something that would maintain the secret of magic. I didn't want to be _that_ much of a failure as a magus! "... I suppose that I have certain abilities. I thought that I would be able to use them to help her."

Smooth.

Way to not fail, Shirou.

Maybe I would be able to find a nice, deep well to throw myself into at some point: there was a possibility that maybe, just _maybe_, Rin couldn't be bothered to climb down and explain to me in detail just how badly I had messed all of this up. And then I could happily starve to death in complete darkness.

Miya took this in with only a nod, as if she had been expecting something like this.

"Homura-san told me that the Sekirei you fought the other day thought you were a scrap," she reminded me, and brought a hand up to tap thoughtfully at her chin. "I had thought that people like you had been bred out of existence long ago..."

What? Bred out of existence?

"Huh? What are you talking about?" I give voice to my confusion, earning me a sympathetic look from Miya. I was more than a little surprised that my revelation had caused so little of a stir in this creature that stank of blood. After all, I had just insinuated that I was more than mundane. What exactly about me could have been bred out of existence?

"I imagine it was quite a shock for you, when you found out that you were different," She said, sounding a bit friendlier than she had moments before.

"Well, no," I admit uncomfortably, uncertain as to where this conversation was going. "My adoptive father taught me some of the things I needed to know to start. And when he died I figured out most of the rest on my own."

Well, with a lot of help from Rin and Archer.

The landlady quirked her head to the side, apparently intrigued by something I had said.

"Adopted? I was under the impression that Takami Sahashi was your mother, but perhaps..." she looked troubled by something, looking at me carefully.

"She is," I nod in agreement, still a bit bewildered by all of this. "But... things happened when I was young, and now I don't remember anything before my father adopted me ten years ago."

Miya's expression darkened at this, stopping me cold. Something about all of this had obviously struck a chord in her, but I couldn't imagine what that might have been.

"To think that such things were happening so early..." She mused quietly to herself with a faraway look in her eyes. "But yes, I suppose that if one was still around then it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for there to be others as well. This could change a great deal..."

"Excuse me," I interject, by now thoroughly confused. "But what are you talking about?"

Miya smiled kindly at me, and by now I was thoroughly confused by her change in demeanor. This _wasn't_ how I'd planned on this happening.

"Of course, Emiya-kun," she agreed lightly, and rose from her darkened section of the room to sit next to me. (I was hugely relieved to see that she'd left her katana behind, as well.) "I believe it would be prudent of me to explain the nature of your heritage."

My heritage?

"But, I already know who my mother-" I suddenly realize that I was focusing on only one half of the equation. "Wait, you know who my father is? Takami's never told me, and she always got very quiet and scary whenever I brought it up-"

"Ara, I wasn't talking about that, Emiya-kun," The landlady interjected. "I meant something further back in your lineage."

She paused, considering what she should ay next. I waited patiently, and it seemed that Akitsu had finally gotten over her shock of what I had done to Musubi and was now listening raptly. I had to assume that she simply wanted to know about her 'Ashikabi'. Eventually, it seemed that Miya had settled on the best way to proceed.

"You should know that this isn't the first time that the Sekirei have appeared," she explained slowly. "Thousands of years ago, one of our ships crashed to Earth, and nine of us emerged from the ruins. They managed to find a place amongst your ancestors, and thrived. You are one of their descendants. And apparently you have inherited a great deal from them, though I cannot say how."

What?

Wait, _what?_

"You're saying that I'm an alien hybrid," I simplify with deadpan disbelief. There really was no other way to say that sentence. It was just _that_ ridiculous.

"You make it sound strange when you say it like that, Emiya-san," the landlady said with an amused smirk

'Because it is!' I wanted to say it. It was just _asking_ to be said. But doing so might make her think more about this situation, and I really didn't want that. As crazy as her belief was, she seemed satisfied with it.

"Ah," Akitsu, apparently having decided to interject at this point, nodded to herself. "Shirou-sama is part Sekirei."

I turn to give the pale woman a look of disbelief, and found her staring back at me, a tiny blush on her cheeks.

Was it strange that this person who wanted me to be their emotional support was prepared to believe that I was less than fully human at the drop of a hat? I would have to ask Rin about that later. In fact, I would probably have to ask Rin about a lot of things when it came down to it: as much as I wanted the poor woman to be happy, I knew that I wasn't exactly the most savvy when it came to matters like this.

I turn back to Miya, who is nodding in satisfaction to herself. Obviously something about all of this made sense to _her_.

And far be it from me to look a gift-horse in the mouth, even if it did sound ridiculous.

"Well," I force myself to say. "I suppose it'll just take some getting used to. I always thought I was human."

"Oh, but you _are_, Shirou-kun," Miya informed me brightly. "After thousands of years of interbreeding, how could you be anything else? You've just inherited certain... qualities from your ancestors. The healing would be one, and..."

Her expression darkened somewhat as she realized that she hadn't quite gotten an answer to her original question.

"What exactly did you do to Musubi?" She demanded, once again watching me carefully.

At this point I was feeling a bit more confident in being able to get out of explaining the existence of magic. All I needed to do was omit the existence of Rule Breaker in my explanation. Or not go into depth about its abilities.

Oh dear.

"Ah, well," I began, and tried desperately to find some way to not tell the whole truth yet again. Hopefully it would work this time as well. "Eh, well, I guess you could say that I tried to cut the bond between Musubi and her Master," I almost curse myself for the minor slip-up: as much as the Sekirei Plan reminded me of the Heaven's Feel ritual the two were not the same. I would have to make that my mantra. "Ah, sorry, her Ashikabi. I'd seen something like that done before, but and thought I could do it too..."

And now I knew to never, _ever_ do it again.

Luckily, Miya seemed to find something of worth in my words, as she nodded in response, signaling her belief. This seemed to be as much recognition as my response was going to get, however, as soon after this she looked away from me, already mulling this over.

"Hrmm, mild psychic abilities?" Miya mused, her attention once again straying from me in favour of her own thoughts. "Yes, I suppose if some can create bonds then it might be possible that someone else could sever them. I wonder..."

If ever I needed proof that making assumptions was never a good idea, I was getting it here and now. I suppose Miya's abilities to draw a line of logic from what I was saying that coincided with her own internal reasoning was somewhat impressive. I was almost tempted to tell her the truth and see how she would reconcile _that_ with what she knew. But only almost.

Miya's eyes suddenly snapped back towards me, a thoughtful frown on her face.

"And your 'father'," she said, and I could all but see the air quotations. "You say he rescued you, yes? From what, exactly?"

"Oh," I was on firmer ground, here. After all, I'd told the story several times already over the span of my life, and there was hardly any magic at all to explain away. "Well, when I was a child there was a huge fire, and I was one of the only survivors. One of my earliest memories are of my father rescuing me from it as people died all around me."

Miya gave me a sympathetic look full of sadness at this,

"I'm not sure how to tell you this, Shirou-kun," She said, sounding remorseful. "But I suspect that the man who 'saved' you might have in actuality tried to kidnap you because of your heritage."

For a moment I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The world simply _stopped_ for a second, rocked off its foundations by the statement.

And then I got angry. The idea that one of my most cherished memories, the day I had discovered my ideal, the day of my birth, was a lie...

It was preposterous. It was impossible. It wasn't a notion I wanted to entertain in any capacity. Even for the sake of a lie.

"My father _saved_ me," I state in no uncertain terms.

"I'm sure you think so, Emiya-san-" Miya tried to placate me, but to no avail. I would not yield on this point on any account: Emiya Kiritsugu was a _hero_, and while his sins might have been many his intentions in saving me had been pure.

"I _know_ so," I stress the word, driving its meaning home. "Emiya Kiritsugu saved me that day, and he spent the rest of his life taking care of me. What happened to me wasn't his fault."

Well, aside from causing the fire in the first place. But that hadn't really been his true intent: his goal had been to prevent the corrupted Grail's curse from fully manifesting. I knew this to be true. I had finished the job, after all.

The alien smiled reassuringly at me, and I couldn't tell whether she really believed me or not.

But I suppose it didn't matter, one way or another. _I_ knew what was true. The joy that my father had shown at finding me: that something could be saved from all that death and destruction... that was real.

That was my ideal.

"Of course, Emiya-san," she said instead of pressing the issue, and I allow myself to calm down a bit more.

I suspect that I was bristling more than a little at all of this, which I suppose made sense. I'd never taken well to having my ideals questioned, but what Miya had been suggesting was a great deal more than mere questioning: it was the suggestion that the man I had inherited them from had _lied_ about everything he had taught me about himself.

Now that I wasn't angry, I feel a bit foolish for having gotten riled up about it. Really, it wasn't like she was in possession of all the facts. She couldn't: that was the whole _point_ of lying about all this.

Miya sighed, and rose to her feet.

"Now that you are awake, I suppose you will want a change of clothes," the reminder that I was naked caused me to blush hotly and look down, suddenly very self-conscious. "I would have sent Akitsu-chan to get some earlier, but she's refused to leave your side."

"Ah, that would be good," I say, not looking up. A sudden dread fills me, however, as I realize that if nobody's gone to get me clothes, then that would mean that Rin and Saber hadn't-

As if waiting for that exact moment, someone banged at the landlady's door. In the silence of night, the sound boomed with frightening loudness.

"Shirou?" I heard Rin shout angrily from the hallway, interrupting the elder Sekirei. "Shirou, is that you? Are you awake? If you are and you don't answer me, there will be _hell_ to pay!"

"I don't think shouting is necessary, Rin," I heard Saber chide gently. "I'm certain that Miya-dono would inform us of Shirou's condition as soon as possible."

In the dim light of the room I could make out a ghost of a smile on Miya's lips along with a slight upturning of her eyes that hinted at real mirth.

"Of course, it wasn't just Akitsu-chan that was worried about you. Those girls of yours have been pestering me almost non-stop since they found out where you were," she said lightly, and rose to her feet. "It's been quite a long time since I'd heard a young woman speak so harshly about her young man," the smile widened a fraction. "It was quite refreshing."

I feel a blush warming my cheeks as I realized just what she was implying. It was embarrassing enough when Rin's peculiar "tendencies" occurred in the relative privacy of our own apartment. (And it would only be 'relatively private' because Rin would get loud when she got impassioned about something.) That Rin would lose her composure in front of this creature... I must have worried her quite a bit.

Miya seemed to sense my embarrassment, because her smile widened significantly as she turned to address her doorway.

"Emiya-san has woken up, Rin-chan," she called out, and not a second later the door snapped open and Rin stomped inside, closely followed by a much quieter Saber. "Please, do come inside," she continued, not at all deterred that neither of them had waited for permission.

"You," Rin growled at me as she sat herself down in front of me. "What did you _do_? There's a _crater_ outside in the garden that looks like someone tried to bury you alive without digging the hole! That chesty-amazon is gone! You were locked up in here for a day!"

"Ah, by the way," Miya interrupted, "I'll be expecting you to take responsibility for ruining my back yard, Emiya-san."

"And you!" Rin whirled on the landlady, pointing an accusatory finger. "Why were you locked up with him for days! What were you doing to him?"

"Ara?" Miya tilted her head to the side, perfectly imitating oblivious innocence. "I was just taking care of one of my tenants. After all the injuries he sustained, I was quite concerned for his well-being."

Concerned enough to knock me out, anyways. I would have to avoid getting on her bad side once again.

"Ah, I think what Rin means to say is that she was worried about Shirou," Saber diplomatically translated, not at all flustered by Rin's tirade. "And that we would have appreciated to be kept apprised of his health."

"Ah, of course," Miya agreed airily. "I was simply so concerned for Shirou that I forgot to tell you."

"You '_forgot'_?" Rin hissed, the words laced with pure acid.

Miya's eyes crinkled a bit with amusement at my lover's antics before she

"Emiya-kun, I think that there is perhaps something that you should share with these two," Miya interjected smoothly, completely cutting Rin off. "After all, they need to know, yes?"

For a moment I stare at her with incomprehension, and then her words slide into place. Rin glowers at me, and I just know that the mere implication that I was keeping secrets doesn't sit well with her.

"Don't you ignore me!" Rin demanded hotly, pointing an accusatory finger at the landlady. "What does the idiot need to tell me?"

Miya ignores her, remaining fixed on me expectantly.

I resisted the urge to sigh heavily. This was going to be embarrassing.

"Oh," I say shortly, and shrug. "You're right." I suppose it would be best to get this over with as soon as possible, and then wait for Rin to finish teasing me. Which could quite possibly be never. She could be petty like that.

I took a short breath and tried to keep my face carefully blank so as not to betray just how silly I found all of this.

"Rin, Saber, I'm an alien," I state in complete deadpan, and it is a fight not to let my true feelings as to this belief show. "Well, an alien hybrid, anyways. I'm part Sekirei."

Saber raised an eyebrow at this, obviously amused by the notion.

Rin's reaction, however, was a bit more complex. At first she froze, and then her head turned almost shakily so that her eyes became riveted on me and mouth still open in the middle of anger-fueled tirade. And then her face seemed to melt into a mask of emotionlessness, her righteous fury from seconds before instantly forgotten. She keeps perfectly still for a moment, as if she was absorbing this new piece of information with all the due gravity it deserved.

But I'm not fooled for one moment: I know that the _second_ we reach some kind of privacy, I was going to get laughed at. And then scolded from being an idiot, though there was the possibility that they might happen at the same time.

"I see," Rin said slowly. And then she smirks. A tiny sliver of a grin. "I always knew you were a bit strange, Shirou. And now I know why. It's because you're an alien."

Saber looks further amused by this, and – arrgh! – it looked like she was going to get in on the teasing.

"Indeed," the swordswoman agreed. "Of course, this also means that you are sleeping with an alien. What on earth would all our friends in England think if they knew?"

Rin looked like she was about to laugh at that, before she had a sudden realization of her own. She then wheeled on me, blushing and indignant.

"Shirou, _you can never mention this to anyone! Ever!_" She hissed darkly, once more glowering at me. "My reputation would be _ruined!_ I'd be a walking stereotype!"

Ah, and there the pride as a magus raised its head. I can just imagine how furious Rin would be if she was looked down upon by her peers if this, even if it wasn't true, was ever found out by the Clock Tower. Even if she was accepted back, there would always be sneers and snickers behind her back. Well, more than there had been before. (That was just one of the things you had to deal with when you were in a three-way relationship, I suppose.) She'd be the stereotypical hedge-magi who consorted and watered down their otherworldly, non-human entities. There'd be no salvaging her reputation after that.

And even if we weren't accepted back anytime soon, it would still be dragging the Tohsaka name through the mud. That was bad enough in and of itself.

However, this was assuming I ever felt the pressing need to convince someone that I was ass-backwards _crazy_.

I would just have to masquerade as a Scrap until all this nonsense was over, I suppose. I would have to make a point of wearing hats soon, or of carefully copying Akitsu's Crest on my own forehead.

"Trust me, I have no plans on telling anyone any time soon," I grumble in response. "This is just ridiculous."

"Ara?" Miya, though she seemed to be amused at our antics. "Somehow I don't think you're giving this the due consideration it deserves."

Rin huffed, still flustered.

"Bah, so he's an alien," she grumbled, folding her arms across her chest. "He's still Shirou, so he's still an idiot. That's all that matters."

"Thank you," I said with mock sincerity. "That makes me feel so much better."

"Rin has the right of it," Saber agreed belatedly with a nod. "No matter his descent, Shirou remains as he has always been. This changes nothing."

"Right," Rin nodded, and then grabbed my wrist. "Now come on, Shirou! We need to talk about this!"

"Ack! W, wait!" I protested as Rin tried to drag me away. "I haven't got anything on under this! I'm naked!"

"I don't care!" Rin shouted. "You're going to tell me what you did last night, and why that Musubi-person isn't here anymore!"

"My, I hadn't thought it had _that_ long since last time, Rin," Saber said with a quiet chuckle. "One would almost think that you were eager to find out just how human Shirou was."

"I'm _not_ having sex with an alien!" Rin refuted hotly, and then turned a shade of red that matched her shirt as she realized that we weren't alone. "I mean, that is, err-"

Miya's expression darkened, and then there appeared a dark specter of malevolence behind. For a moment I wasn't certain that I was actually seeing it, but its oppressive aura soon dispelled all doubt. It looked like a mask of some sort, strangely horrifying for all that it did nothing more than hang in the air motionlessly.

And then two others poked out from either side of it, and the feeling of dread was suddenly hugely increased. I could do nothing more than _stare_ into the heart of fear itself as sinister red light began glowing from their eyes and dark plumes of smoke poured from their mouth.

"_Lewd acts are not permitted in my bedroom!_" Miya warned forebodingly, all mirth vanished.

"Ggh," I choked out in an attempt to acquiesce to her demand.

"Ack!" Rin said beside, no doubt trying to do much the same.

"Of course not," Saber agreed easily, strangely unaffected by what she was seeing. Conspicuously so, in fact, as I felt myself turning to gape at her almost against my will. "We made provisions for this, did we not?"

Miya froze in doing... whatever it was she was doing in order to stare in surprise at Saber. And then the spell seemed to be broken, because a moment later the masks, and that strange oppressive aura, faded into nothing, reverting the room back to its former self and freeing the rest of us from its power.

"So we did, Saber-san," the alien watched the blonde swordswoman carefully, obviously curious as to why she alone had remained undaunted by the fearsome apparition. "See to it that you do not disturb the other residents, however."

"Scary," Akitsu muttered quietly.

"Naturally," Saber nodded, and rose to her feet. "Come along then, Shirou. We have much to discuss."

"Hold on!" I cried out desperately. "What the hell was that?"

"Ara?" Miya gave a small smile. "What was what?"

"That, that thing!" Rin elaborated, pointing over the landlady's shoulder. "It was right there! It was a Hannya!"

"Ah, I'm certain that I have no idea what you're talking about Shirou-kun, Rin-chan," Miya informed us, and she sounded so genuine that for a second I actually believed that she hadn't been aware of it. And then her mouth tilted upwards into a smirk, and I knew that she was just teasing us.

Oh, so that's how this was going to be, was it?

"I have to agree with Miya-dono in this matter," Saber chipped in with a raised eyebrow. "What are you two talking about?"

"Eh?" Rin gasped, still shakily pointing at where the fearsome visages had been moments before. "Didn't you see them? There were _three_ of them, and they were all..."

She froze when she saw that Saber was genuine with her question: her inquisitively tilted head and raised eyebrow were all we needed to know the truth. She really hadn't seen anything.

Interesting...

"Gah, this is stupid," Rin grumbled, then grabbed my wrist and gave it a yank. "C'mon, Shirou."

"W, wait!" I protest, blushing once more. "I still need pants! _Pants, damn it!_"

*_Elsewhere...*_

She'd been walking through the streets of Shin-Tokyo for what seemed like an eternity, the hot fury of her bereavement having long ago cooled and finally died as terrible realization began to sink in. It welled up inside of her, filling her with crushing dread and a terribly hollow sensation. She felt like she was missing some key component, an integral part of herself that she'd never noticed before it had been burned out of her by that unnatural dagger.

Faces and sounds blurred past her as she walked as if in a daze, too caught up in the alien feeling that seemed to be getting stronger by the moment. A sense of _wrong_, a deep yearning and _need_, a nagging doubt... it was difficult to specify just what she was feeling: she'd never felt it before. Everything about this sensation was new, and everything about it was horrible. It weighed down inside her gut like a physical presence, like some terrible dread.

Day passed into night without her ever noticing it, and soon enough she found herself alone in an empty park, her clothes still disheveled and dirty from her battle the night before, sitting at the sickly trunk of a pathetically wilting tree.

She stared down at her feet, her head strangely empty of anything.

She had nowhere to go. The freedom Shirou had promised her was a lie, leaving her hollow and broken and alone.

Broken.

That was exactly the right word for it.

Everything had been so _simple_, before. Even if they hadn't been ideal, she could live with it. 'Love Mikogami'. 'Protect Mikogami'. 'Find the power of love'. 'Find happiness'. Simple goals. An easy existence.

These things were no longer a part of her life. They had been ripped away from her in a single moment of pain and madness, leaving in their place that horrible _need._

And now she had no one. Nobody to love, nobody to protect, nobody to love her in return...

"I'm sorry Karasuba-san," Musubi whispered, and made a quiet sound that was a cross between a sigh and a sob. "I won't be able to keep my promise."

How could she, when there was nobody for her to love?

From far away there came the sound of laughter, and Musubi turned instinctively to find the source.

Further away, at the edge of the sickly mid-town park, a happy couple walked hand-in-hand in the moonlight, laughing quietly at some private joke. Musubi watched them jealously as the man suddenly gathered the woman in his arms and kissed her soundly on the lips, eliciting a fresh fit of laughter from them both. Her hands clenched into balls as she felt her jealousy change into hot fury once more, and for a brief moment she was once again consumed by that madness that had filled her in her fight with Shirou and had dulled her to the pain that now lived within her. Somehow she managed to rein herself in at the last moment, stopping herself from doing something that she know she would later regret.

Instead, she stared down at the ground, waiting for the sounds of happiness to leave her hearing before she trusted herself to look back up.

She stared at where the two had been, and felt that need return.

How did humans do it? How could they survive without love? How could they keep going, day to day, with this horrible _need_? What made _them_ different from her?

How could they so easily find a place in the world without someone to stand by them?

Why did she have to be alone?

Musubi looked up, a sudden realization coming to the forefront of her mind.

There _was_ still someone in her life. Somewhere she could go.

Maybe she could find that feeling again, in spite of what had been done to her? Maybe she only felt worse off than she actually was? The small flicker of hope brought warmth to the gaping void inside of her, which in turn brought a smile to her lips.

Perhaps things weren't all that bad.

Regardless, she would need a place to live. And there was only one place she could think of that she could think of that would take her back.

Mikogami.

* * *

**AN:** Question time!

"_Syroc, will you be abandoning the humorous aspects of this story?"_

Miya has kept Shirou locked up and naked in her room. (And not in the way all the shippers would have hoped, either!) Shirou is now also masquerading as an alien half-breed. Rin is trying to not be a stereotype. Shirou is upholding the noble Sekirei tradition of being scantily clad at awkward times. Miya's room is a strict no-lewdness area. Saber can stare into fear itself and demand nookie-privileges.

I think that answers that...

"_Syroc, will you be stabbing anything sharp and horrible into my soft-parts any time soon?"_

As much as I might enjoy it, no.

And I think that last one is as deep as I'm going to be able to jam something sharp into you, so don't worry on that account.

About as stabby (that I can foresee, anyways,) as I'm going to get is with the Musubi sections, (each chapter from here on out (until something happens,) will feature a short Musubi snippet at the end, just so that she doesn't drop off the radar/get put on a bus,) and even those will eventually turn optimistic. Amongst other things. But that's a story yet to unfold!

Thank you and good night, gentle folk!


	9. How Aliens Make Love

**No One Left Behind: How Aliens Make Love**

I'd missed going to sleep with the comfort of two other bodies at either side. I doubt Rin would ever admit it, but if either I or Saber fell asleep next to her we would invariably wake up with the short magus draped across us. And Saber, for her part, seemed to be a natural cuddler as well, though to a lesser degree. And the warmth generated from them could be greater than any blanket or comforter, and thus had been a great boon on many a cold, wintry London night.

That they would both instant deny such claims might be considered amusing to other people, but when both individuals in question were perfectly capable and at ease with throwing me around the room such humor was somewhat lessened.

Sleepily, I move closer to the warm body next to me.

Something causes me to pause, however. A certain yielding softness where I was used to a hardness of muscle. (Which wasn't to say that either of my lovers weren't soft. They just had a layer of muscle underneath that with which I had grown familiar.)

A certain... _fullness_ that I had not felt before.

And with that startling realization I waken.

My eyes snap open and I remember that, in the wake of my recovery and my lovers interrogating me as to how foolish I had been in trying to solve everything by myself _yet again_ I had ruined the situation and, possibly, someone's life.

"Akitsu?" I asked quietly, trying not to wake either Rin or Saber. "Why are are- what are you doing here?"

"Ah," the woman said, and a light blush spread across her cheeks. "You were warm."

"But- you have your own room!" I pointed out, only now having the grace to sound embarrassed at the situation we were in. "With blankets! And a heater! Why are you here?"

After being released from Miya's care, both Rin and Saber had decided that a bed was too good for me at the moment, and so I had been banished to the living room until such a time that they decided that I had been punished enough... or they had something else in store for me. Knowing them, and knowing myself, I suspected that they suspected that I while I would miss sleeping with them at my side, I wouldn't be greatly affected by it. That was a part of what made me so distorted, after all.

Miya, when she had learned of my situation, had been kind enough to supply me with a thin comforter to ward off the night's chill. But that was the only luxury she would afford me, apparently: I wasn't in the clear with her either, which I could fully understand and appreciate.

There was no denying that I had messed everything up.

I would need to start fixing that, soon.

Akitsu didn't immediately answer, but her blush intensified greatly as she slowly averted her gaze from me.

"... I wanted to see you," she admitted quietly.

Oh.

That was...

That was actually kind of creepy.

It takes me a moment for me to realize what I'd just thought, but I cannot refute the claim. Although I was not unfamiliar with this sort of thing (Thank you, Saber, for your complete and utter lack of modesty or restraint in regards to protecting your Master.) but to sneak into a bed? That was a new level of wrong.

And then it all comes crashing down around me.

Nothing about this situation was right. Nothing about this made any sense.

Why did Sekirei go insane when they lost their bond? What does that bond entail, really? I of course knew that we were dealing with an alien species, and thus alien logic applied to some extent, but surely with all their modification came something that a human could understand?

Why was MBI doing all of this? What was their endgame? Why were they investing so many resources to this? Rin couldn't have been the only person to realize what 'unlimited credit' meant, and if every Sekirei and their Ashikabi was given such a card there would have to be quite a few people racking up an obscene amount of debt. They might not be as flagrant in their abuse of the system, but it all had to add up. It had to be _ruinous_ for the company to even allow them to exist.

How were we going to make sure nothing horrible happened?

Rin, Saber and I thought that our hardships put us above all of this, but for all that we had yet to make any real progress. Sure, it had only been a few days since we had become involved, but that was no real excuse. A few days is plenty of time to find things out, especially considering the prime We had a loyal and knowledgeable Sekirei on hand, after all.

I would be more than a little surprised and disappointed if Homura's concerns was wholly limited to the whereabouts of unwinged Sekirei, and not for the Plan as a whole. His goal, however flawed the manner in which he pursued it may be, was ultimately the same as mine: to put a stop to all of this. Despite how I felt about him, I would have to at least start cooperating with him if I was serious about preventing all of this from getting any more out of hand than it already had.

But first things first: I needed to learn about Sekirei and, more importantly, about their bonds. I could might be able to fix the situation with Musubi, or at least find out why she had reacted the way she had.

And so I sat up, careful not to make too much noise. I didn't want to wake anybody up and answer any awkward questions like 'what are you doing?' or 'why is Akitsu half-naked and lying next to you?'. They wouldn't be very helpful, just now.

Beside me, Akitsu rose to a sit as well, and I became uncomfortably aware that the woman

"Akitsu," I said seriously, "Would you mind if I asked you some things? About... being a scrap, and the bond between Sekirei and their Ashikabi?"

I didn't want to sound insensitive to the woman's plight, but this was _important_.

"Ah," the pale woman said, and nodded. "No."

"Thank you," I say, and I smile. I wanted to be as encouraging as I could in this. If Akitsu's reaction to becoming a scrap was as dramatic as Musubi's had been, I could understand why Homura had been so reluctant to help her. I can't imagine that a normal human would ever survive such an encounter. So it was only natural that I didn't want a repeat performance.

How to begin? I suppose just what the bond fully entailed would be the best. I wouldn't get very far if I didn't know about the basest of the basics.

"Could you tell me about the bond between an Ashikabi and their Sekirei?"

The woman stiffened slightly at the question, but had no other overt reaction. She simply stared straight ahead in complete silence. And then she slowly shook her head.

"No," she said neutrally. "I can't. I don't know anything about that."

Damn. I had really been hoping for a more in-depth explanation of what was going on. I suppose I would have to ask Rin to grill Homura about that later, if she hadn't already. Even if she didn't know what had happened to Musubi until I had told her last night, I don't thinks she would have used all of the time I spent recovering from being savaged simply fretting over me. (Although she _might_ have done a bit of mild worrying, considering that Miya had apparently sequestered me in her room without explanation.) Sentimentality was not a quality she much indulged in these kind of situations, after all.

"Alright," I said, not letting my disappointment show in my voice. "Can you tell me about being a scrap?"

"..." Akitsu said.

It seemed like a logical contradiction for silence to be spoken, but Akitsu managed it perfectly. Somehow, the way she subtly shivered at the question said more than any explanation ever could. For a long time that silence seemed to the only answer she was going to supply me with.

"You don't need to answ-" I began.

"Ah," Akitsu said at last, apparently having gathered her thoughts on the matter. "It feels empty."

"Empty?" I repeated the word, a sinking feeling welling up in my stomach.

What was it Musubi had said? That I had stolen something from her?

Was there something in the biology of the Sekirei that demanded a psychic bond with someone? Or did they actually draw something from their Ashikabi? It was an unpleasant line of thought to go down, if so. It meant that the Sekirei were at best symbiotic, and at worst parasitic.

"Yes," Akitsu suddenly looked up at me, and there was something that I could only describe as hopeful knowingness. "You can feel it too. I can see it."

She could see it? See what? My emptiness? What emptiness? There wasn't anything empty about me. I was a perfectly- well no, that wasn't true. I was actually quite flawed. After all, I was-

Oh.

Oh dear.

She couldn't mean...

No, she _couldn't_...

...could she?

But the thought was a persuasive one. After all, part of my distortion had been my inability to recognize it as such. Rin had picked up on it quickly enough. And Sekirei were _psychic_: was it possible that they could be aware of such things even without seeing them in action?

"Akitsu," I said with some trepidation. "What exactly is it you see?"

"Ah," the woman became a bit more animated as she watched me intently. "You are different from other humans. You are... broken."

A less than charitable assessment, but not a wholly incorrect one. Rin and Saber were wholeheartedly trying to un-break me as a human being as much as they could, but there would always be a fundamental hole where the which could be called human common sense should be. There was no fixing something that wasn't even there.

"And..." Akitsu continued, and leaned in close to me as if there was some tiny detail about me that she would be able to define if only she inspected it in depth. "There is something else..."

Well.

That was pretty ominous.

"That is why you help me," she said, and I can almost imagine for a moment that she sounded almost content. "It is because you are a scrap. You cannot form a bond."

Ugh. And this was why lies were terrible. Even if they worked out, they led to all sorts of problems.

I would have to nip this in the bud before it caused any problems. As much as I wanted _other_ people to believe that I was a scrapped number, it would be problematic if Akitsu did. There was already more than enough confusion in the waiting with the whole 'alien descendant' nonsense that Miya had concocted.

"Akitsu," I said gently. "I'm not a scrap. I'm... well, I'm just a bit different from most humans."

I _didn't_ say that I also heavily doubted that I was part Sekirei.

"... Oh," was all she said.

I watched as she seemed to sag a little bit, and I suppressed the urge to sigh heavily. Really, for all that Rin had been pushing me to pick up on the various subtleties

"I'm sorry," I said gently, feeling like I had kicked a puppy. "That was insensitive of me."

Akitsu watched me for a moment in silence before she responded with a quiet "it's fine," and lowered her gaze once more.

"I'll still take care of you, though," I told her, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'll find a way to make things better for you."

"... Thank you," the pale woman said quietly, and there was such a feebly hopeful quality to her voice that I knew I would have to do everything in my power to live up to my promise.

I would find a way to fix things for her, and Musubi. If it was the last thing I did here in Shin-Tokyo, I would make certain that they were able to live without that... emptiness.

For now, however, I suppose that I could try to find some way to fill that void.

In the best way I knew how.

I searched around for my phone, and noted the time. A little bit until six-fifteen. Plenty of time before Rin and therefore Saber woke up. And I could use the time before the hardware stores opened up to assess the damage.

With a renewed sense of determination, I reached for my chef's hat and put it on.

"Akitsu, would you like to help me make the world a better place?"

Later, I would ask Homura and Rin for more information about the Sekirei Plan.

For now, however, I would fix the world. One small piece at a time.

* * *

_*Later, at an undisclosed random location in Shin-Tokyo!*_

I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the feeling of something as simple as reassembling the bisected foodcart that Rin had purchased for the sole purpose of being repaired so that I could earn enough money to pay for our rent. It felt nostalgic, in a way, to use my skills for something so mundane and useful. It seemed like such a long time ago that I had accepted that the extent of my abilities would be limited to simple repairs, but I found that it was all coming back to me with startling ease.

So much of what I had tried to learn in London could easily be classified as ivory tower research, where knowledge was acquired simply for the sake of knowledge. And considering the way Magi hoarded their knowledge, it was put to even _less_ use than its everyday counterpart.

Structural Analysis, however, was _always_ useful. As a failure of a magi who wasn't exactly thrilled with the notion of abandoning the modern world, that was something that I could attest to.

Repairs that should have taken days were done in a matter of hours as I took in what needed to be done with a single glance. And, being able to see my mistakes as I made them, I was able to quickly learn from them and improve at a ridiculous rate. I went from rank novice to proficient within the first few welds.

It was now past midday, and after a few solid hours of work everything was coming together nicely.

As I had said to the previous owners, the repairs were easy enough: the damage looked much worse than it actually was.

A closer inspection had proven me right for the most part. Certainly the foodcart itself was an easy fix: all it needed was to be welded together again, and perhaps a few struts put on the bottom and the interior to give it some renewed strength. A few pipes had also been cut, but they were easily replaced once Akitsu and I had been able to get a start on some of the first welds to keep everything together while we worked.

The interior, on the other, was another matter. While the stove and the sink were undamaged, some of the cupboards and counters were made of cheap plywood and thus not much point in trying to repair. Better to see if we sell some of the gold or maybe the less useful gems in order to have them replaced with something more suitable for what I had in store. Something in metal, perhaps. If Sekirei were going to be running around the city chopping up foodcarts willy-nilly it would probably be best to make things as resilient as possible.

And then I would have to see about regaining some of the cooking implements that I had lost as I had fled England and the magical community. So many wondrous devices of my craft... lost. My mother of course had her own kitchen, but it was clear that she was an engineer first, a mother second and a cook _maybe_ a distant third.

I had hoped that the cart would still have most of its tools, but apparently that had been too optimistic of me. Either the previous owner had decided to return and seize what he could, or random passersby had. Whatever the case, there was hardly anything of use worth mentioning in there. I would need to completely replace those as well.

And then there was the menu. I would need to think long had hard on just what food I would be able to prepare and serve with such limited space and resources.

That would be something to look forward to.

For now, however, I put the final weld in place and breathed out a breath I hadn't known that I'd been holding.

"There..." I grunted, and flipped up my welding mask. "Are you done, Akitsu?"

"Ah," the woman said from inside the cart where she was watching me work through the window. "Yes."

"Good," I said with some satisfaction. I had expected this to be a quick fix, but to be done before dinner? That was great. "Then let's take a look at it."

I took a step back and surveyed my work with a mounting sensation of pride in a job well done. The weld wasn't the best, as this was the first time I'd ever tried my hand at it before now, but a quick glance was all I needed to confirm that everything was in order.

There would of course be a great deal of cosmetic work that would need to be done before we could start up our business properly, probably a few coats of paint to cover the ugly weld and maybe a refurbishing of certain items. I would be saving a bit by using my own.

I smiled, and adjusted my chef's hat. It was time for me to test out my new mobile headquar- _kitchen._

I look over to my side, where Akitsu had dutifully positioned herself just a little bit behind me. I wasn't too sure how she had gotten out of the cart without being seen, but I suppose it was possible that she had her ways. Women usually did.

"We do good work, don't we Akitsu?" I said optimistically, trying to instill within her a bit of my satisfaction.

"Ah," the pale woman said slowly, and surveyed our work as well. It might have been a trick of the light, or a perhaps just the angle at which I was looking, but I was relatively certain that there was a miniscule curve to her mouth that might have been a tiny smile. "Yes."

I beam at her, and admired out handiwork once again.

And then, without warning, two Sekirei dropped out of the sky and smashed onto the roof with enough force to shatter the windows.

For a long time, all I can do is simply stare at the once-again ruined foodcart. And then I sighed heavily in disappointment.

"I was a fool to think it was going to be that easy," I grumbled even as I approached the once-again ruined foodcart.

It looked like today was going to get interesting.

* * *

_*Elsewhere...*_

Things weren't exactly as Musubi remembered them at the plushly appointed residence of Hayato Mikogami.

For one thing, it didn't feel right to be there anymore.

Not like it apparently seemed to the others that Mikogami had gathered. They seemed perfectly content to bicker and/or play with one another, or compete for the affections of their Ashikabi, or so many of the other things that Musubi remembered doing herself at one time or another.

She had tried to do so again, in the beginning. Had tried to insert herself back into her old life.

But every time someone caught eye of her forehead and hastily looked away, or a conversation trailed off as she approached, or any of the other small but cumulative effects that amounted to Musubi feeling like an invader in what had been her home just a few days ago. They _knew_ what she was trying to do. They _knew_ that she was trying to force herself back into the old mould.

But most of all... they knew that she didn't love Mikogami.

And because of that, she didn't have a place among them.

Which seemed more than a little unfair to her.

After all, she knew that not all of _them_ had been willingly winged. Some of them had been kissed by the young man for no better reason than that he had been close by. Others had even resisted before being beaten into submission. The only reason _they_ loved him was because of an errant shrug of fate. Had they only been at a different place at a different time, they might have loved someone else.

But now? Now they all loved _him_.

But she didn't.

She couldn't. The only thing she felt towards him was resentment. For winging her despite not being her destined one, for sending her out to collect number 108. For feeling _nothing_ for her, save a kind of morbid curiosity for her new state.

It had been a strange feeling, that realization. Strange, and enraging. And it brought with it other realizations, none of them any less strange or confusing. Or enraging.

If he didn't love her now, had he loved her _then_? She had certainly _thought_ so, at the time. It had felt so wonderful to be with him, before. So... _right_. Like everything was right in the world, and nothing could ever stop her from being happy with him. It had felt like destiny manifest.

But that was gone now. And with it, things were no longer right. Everything about the whole situation was wrong.

Mikogami didn't love any of them. Possibly he was _fond_ of some of them - Mutsu most of all, it seemed – but love, that which she craved, just wasn't there.

And there was something else. A niggling doubt, a lurking suspicion.

What did it say about _her_, that her love was so easily destroyed?

Love was a profound thing that could break through every barrier, an unstoppable force of nature that swept everyone up in a whirlwind of joy and triumph. And, in due time, a great deal of sex. Musubi was certain that that was involved at some point.

How could something like that just disappear? Such a thing had seemed impossible to her. _Inconceivable_, even. And yet, here she was.

She watched them from her spot, saw them cast wistful glances towards their Ashikabi, and resisted the urge to leap across the room and pummel them for having something she didn't. For being whole when she was broken. For any number of things. She wanted to _fight_, to at least feel _something!_

Her eyes caught a movement, and she quickly focused on it.

It was Mutsu. He was bending over to whisper something to Mikogami that she couldn't hear. The Ashikabi nodded, frowned, and then looked over at her.

And then he looked at her with something like a mixture of disdain and pity.

That man who had been the first step along the road that had ruined her. He was just as much to blame as Shirou was. Shirou, in his own way, had at least tried to be _kind_. He had tried to _free_ her from _him_. To give her a second chance.

If she'd never met _him_, she might have met her destined one. She wouldn't be filled with doubt and despair. She would have known _love_, the kind she had dreamed about!

Something within Musubi snapped into place, and in that moment she leapt across the room with an angry snarl.

Love can make you do some pretty crazy things, after all.

An absence of it even moreso.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Not much to say, story-wise. Short, but it did all the things I needed it to while avoiding a certain infodump. I just needed to get this part out fast, because it's mostly just transition work. Anyways, people who've read the manga might have some inkling as to what will happen with Shirou next chapter. It's not too hard to work out.

Delay was due to an intense case of complete apathy that came from... well, less said the better. Suffice to say that I lost my inspiration. It can be quite a canny creature when it wants to be. The shattered deadline on my profile was due to me having to look something up, not finding it, and then having to rewrite the scene that followed

Anyways, I've decided to skip over the whole 'beta reader' thing. Sorry to those of you who agreed to provide the service, but I've decided that I'm really not bothered by the occasional typo and since I've played fast and loose with canon before, I see no point in stopping now. (Ask me about what I think about the FSN nowadays. Go on.) That said, if anyone finds an easy mistake, (that is, easy to _fix_,) feel free to point it out. Chances are I'll make the edit within the day, because I am incredibly vain.


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